Book review

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma

When she was in Grade 4 Alice and her father, Jim promised each other he would read to her for a hundred consecutive nights . At the end of this over a celebratory supper of pancakes they decided they would continue for a thousand nights so until Alice’s first day at university her father read aloud to her, every night. Way, way over a thousand nights They called it The Streak.
This book tells her story not only recalling the books they shared but her growth from a child into an eloquent teenager It encompasses a hilarious chapter on a child’s funeral for a gold fish, the dilemma of her parent’s separation, and what about the recurring nightmare of the corpse in the other bed. Each chapter contains a piece of Alice’s life ending with a lovely punch line.
The disturbing chapter comes at the end when her father’s library (Jim is a school librarian) is stripped of books and turned into a computer lab. And all the carefully selected titles are stored in a basement and the choice the children now have narrows down to modern paperbacks.
For those of us with a love of reading, because this is a true story and Shirley’s (from the library) comment in last months Star on what is happening in UK schools combines to make us uneasy about just what could happen in our schools.
Alice Ozma has written a very readable book one I read in one sitting
Congratulations
I am thrilled to find our library service has all the books shortlisted for this years Man Booker prize and 12 of the 13 titles that were on the long list. Now we have the opportunity to read them all and decide if we agree when the judges chose the winner later in the year. My choice is ‘Pigeon English’ by Stephen Kelman with ‘Snowdrops’ by A D Miller in second place although I have yet to read Patrick deWitt’s ‘The Sisters Brothers’. Great library service!
Glenys Hansen