Planting seeds that encourage us to read

I love to read. I think I always have. My memory doesn’t stretch back far enough to recall a time when good books weren’t a part of my life. Our home was filled with them. My parents were readers, so maybe I learned the art of reading by osmosis? If not, then certainly by example. As a toddler, I became a precocious reader. By the time I was four, I was reading a fair amount on my own.

So, imagine my delight to see book exchange boxes cropping up in various residential areas around Boulder City in recent months. A book exchange box is a shared box or cabinet, commonly posted by a homeowner in his or her front yard, where people exchange books for free. These boxes are designed to promote reading and strengthen community ties by connecting neighbors through a shared love of literature. People share their books by leaving them in the box for anyone to take or borrow. Would-be readers aren’t required to leave a book in the box in order to take one. But the honor system definitely encourages that.

Probably the most well-known example of book exchange boxes is the Little Free Library, a non-profit organization that promotes a global network of registered book-sharing boxes. Other names for the boxes include book swap boxes, community libraries, free library boxes, and neighborhood book boxes.

In Boulder City, there’s been at least one book exchange box on the corner of Darlene Way and Sandra Drive for years. Currently there are two there. More recently I’ve discovered book exchange boxes on El Camino Way, Bermuda Dunes Drive, and other locations around town.

Of course, book exchange boxes aren’t about to put our library out of business. Though these boxes are perhaps even more common in towns where traditional libraries aren’t available, we’re fortunate in Boulder City to have both. Like the exchange boxes, our own library is full of books, open to the public, and mostly free. So, I hope you’re using your library card often, too.

One of the highest compliments anyone can pay me is to share a good book. Whether they loan me their most recent favorite, recommend it to me, or even just tell me how it’s impacted their life, I’m always flattered that they want to share an important part of themselves with me. Simply knowing that they’re readers who, like me, love to share ideas, insights, thoughts, and feelings about our common human experiences instantly endears them to me. In my book (pun intended), there’s no quicker way to kindle a friendship than to share a good book. Alan Kerner and Teresa Giroux are two such friends in my life.

My wife, Leslie, is certainly another of my best book friends. When our kids were young, it was a rare night when she didn’t gather them in our room to read at bedtime. And now our children and their spouses perform similar nightly rituals with their own kids. There aren’t many greater legacies that we could leave to our posterity than teaching them good reading habits and the value of good books.

Over the past three years, Leslie and I have also organized a family book club with our kids and their spouses. G-Ma Cheryl and Grandma Rose regularly join us as well. We read a short classic every month or two, then gather by means of Google Chat or another videoconferencing platform to discuss it. It’s been a truly amazing bonding experience. The physical distance between us melts away for an evening, and our children teach us far more than we ever teach them. Sharing with each other has drawn us closer than ever together as a family.

Reading good books opens our minds to new ideas, connects us with humankind, frees our imagination to take flight, tickles our fancy with delightful turns of phrases, teaches us critical thinking skills, allows us to go places in our hearts and minds that we could never go in real life, helps us understand the perspectives of others who are different, puts into words the things we’ve always wanted to say but didn’t know how, helps us gain wisdom and experience vicariously without having to endure so many hardships of our own, and benefits us in so many other ways. Experiencing any of those joys on our own can certainly be satisfying. But sharing our reading experiences with others through book sharing boxes, libraries, book clubs, and other exchanges is usually even more fulfilling.

So, what are you doing to share your favorite books with others, including those you love but also perfect strangers? I hope we’ll all reap the innumerable benefits of sharing our love for literature by finding more frequent and creative ways to do so.