Literary Manipulations

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

I am a bibliophile – that means I love books. If only I could get paid for it, I would gladly spend the rest of my life reading.

My mother taught me to love books.

Let me rephrase that. She tricked me into loving books.

She would read to me every night; stories about green eggs and ham, floppsie-whosits and wobbly-what-nots. The contents of these spellbinders were frankly less than stimulating, but I was there for the time I got to spend with her. It was the comforting tune of her voice, lilting and falling and breezing by that I loved. I never paid attention to any single word.

She got me to read sometimes, to see if I could and how well. I did, but grudgingly.

I missed her reassuring voice when all I could hear was my own, worse - I actually had to pay attention to the words.

Still, if that was the price I had to pay to have her read to me, I would pay it.

She knew I was a better reader than these books allowed for, but I stubbornly refused to read on my own or even to her except under duress. So in a malicious act of cold and calculated motherly love, she bought me a grown up book.

She brought it home and snuck it into a shelf while I was at school. When I got home she said “I bought you a book today, but I’m beginning to think that maybe I shouldn’t have. I’m afraid it may be too adult for you.”

BAM! Direct hit to the burgeoning male ego.

Too adult? Not possible! I was a grown up from the age of three! Just ask me!
“No it’s NOT!” I protested, though at that point I hadn’t yet seen the book and had no idea what it was. That was beside the point anyway.

“I don’t know,” she hemmed and hawed and played me like a master fisherman, until sure I was hooked.

“Where is it?” I demanded.

“It’s on the shelf with the other books, I put it away when I thought that maybe it was beyond you. Maybe we should wait a few years.”

BAM! There was NO WAY I was going to let this go now! Too adult! Beyond me! That book was mine, and I was going read it if I had to eat it first!

I flew into the living room and scanned the shelves, looking for something that hadn’t been there before. She’d put it on the shelf it in such away that the spine stuck out from the stack like a neon sign.

White Fang by Jack London. Fange? Cool! A vampire book! I slid it out and looked at the cover.

It had a dog on the front. Even better, I love dogs!

I ran back into the kitchen and handed it to her.

“This one?” I chirped hopefully.

She confirmed it was the right book. I begged her to read to me, but she said that it would have to wait until nighttime.

Nighttime came and she was “too tired’ and had a “headache” so she wasn’t able to read to me. My happy little face fell so hard it hit the floor, and great tears began to well up inside.

“But,” she said, “You can read to me if you really think you can handle that book.”

BAM! I’ll show her! I started reading to her. I read for more than an hour that night, and then nearly two the next. On the third night she announced she was too tired to read or be read to, and maybe I should put the book away and choose a floppsie-whapsie-toppsie book.

I put it away, but was too proud to revert back to the “children’s books”. In the middle of night - in the wee still hours (it was probably after 9PM!) I snuck out of my room and snagged White Fang and snuck it back. I devoured that book cover to cover under the glow of a flashlight. The blankets over my head where lit up like a paper lantern.

I found out many years later, that my mother had deviously planned my entire adventure.

What an underhanded, dirty, manipulative trick!

I love it.

And thank you, Mom for tricking me into new worlds and expanding my horizons in ways I never would have dreamed possible.