Book Recommendation- "The Reading Promise," by Alice Ozma

Last year, I was listening to the radio and heard the sweetest father/daughter story of my life. The man who wrote in said that he wanted something to connect him to his daughter as she got older. She was about 9 years old at the time and he decided they would see how many days in a row they could read with each other. The only rules were that it had to be for at least 10 minutes each night and the reading had to occur before midnight. It ended up that they were able to keep this reading streak going until Alice's first day of college. I thought it was so amazing that they were able to do this together and was very excited last week to find out that Alice had written a book about their experience.

I ended up reading it on my way to and from Colorado and was completely fascinated by it. When I first heard their story, one thought that ruined the sweetness of it was that I couldn't believe she hadn't spent any nights away from home. It turns out that she was a very well-adjusted girl, a good student who was also involved in theater. She had solid friendships and even a boyfriend or two. She talked about how they would read earlier in the day if one of them was going to be out late. There was one night when she had a very late play rehearsal and her dad ended up coming to it before midnight in order to read to her in the parking lot.

I loved reading about their father/daughter relationship and it seemed that she gave an honest portrayal of her life with her dad. She talked about how he would edit out certain parts of stories in order to keep her innocent and that his idea of physical affection was scratching his finger on top of her head. She could also tell him anything and respected him so much for the quality time that he invested with her. She ended up going on to Rutgers and getting her degree in English Literature, so it's obvious that all of the time her dad spent reading to her paid off.

Here's a link to their story on CBS News.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkqItDSfHTM&feature=related