The Front Porch: Appeal of printed page lives on despite wired world

I read a recent Dan Webster story in The Spokesman-Review (Writing on the Wall, April 13) with dismay.

Apparently movies, music, candy and novelty items are taking up more space than printed material in local bookstores. Booksellers opined that reading just isn’t what it used to be anymore, especially among the younger crowd.

Guess they haven’t met my 7-year-old son, Sam. He’s at that wonderful stage of development when the printed word rapidly becomes more than a laborious stringing together of phonetic sounds – it becomes magic.

I’ve watched it happen with his three older brothers and each time it seems miraculous. One day they’re struggling through “Go Dog Go” and the next they’re curled up on the couch with “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” or “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”

It seems to happen overnight. The groundwork laid in preschool and kindergarten suddenly bursts into fruition. Of course, it helps if you have books at home.

I grew up in a house full of books. Our weekly trip to the library was as eagerly anticipated as an outing to the candy store. Even today when I’m with my siblings, book titles fly through the air with the sparkle and pizzazz of fireworks.

In my own home, each child has his preference. One son’s bookshelves hold Stephen King novels, while his younger brother enjoys Brian Jacques’ “Redwall” series. Unfortunately, our 12-year-old prefers “The Adventures of Captain Underpants.”

But Sam. Ah, to Sam books are to be devoured indiscriminately and by the stack. Somehow he skipped the picture book phase and went directly to chapter books. Every afternoon and every evening his refrain of “who wants to read with me?” echoes through the house. For Sam, stories – like the best chocolates – are even sweeter when shared.

I wondered after reading Webster’s article if perhaps my family is just a quaint anomaly in the world of e-zines and iPod downloads. So I went in search of book lovers.

A teacher friend and I drove out to the Scholastic Book Warehouse in Spokane Valley. If you want to find a bibliophile, all you have to do is look for two words – “book sale.” The warehouse is the repository for all the books offered on book order forms sent home each month with grade-school children. Twice a year the warehouse has a big sale and opens for teachers, school volunteers and home-school parents.

Towering metal shelves filled the cavernous warehouse, and book lovers in search of bargains crammed huge metal carts and cloth shopping bags with treasures.

I met Darcy Lassey. I told her I’d read that young adults aren’t reading books anymore. She didn’t believe it. “My 19- and 22-year-olds read every day,” she said. Lassey was busy piling books into 2-year-old Konner’s stroller. Konner clutched a “Thomas the Tank Engine” book in his chubby hands and beamed with satisfaction.

Kim Smith shopped the shelves with her toddler son and infant daughter. “We read 10-15 books a day,” she said. “It’s the beginning of language.” Her 3-year-old son, Wyatt, loves the classic children’s story, “The Little Engine That Could.”

I don’t even want to know if you can download a Little Golden Book.

I met Pam Durfee in another corner of the warehouse. The school office assistant said, “In my family we all read. When my daughter was small, she’d pull my book out of my hands and want me to read hers instead.”

Declining book sales aren’t imaginary woes. They’re a fact of life for booksellers struggling to stay afloat. New books are expensive, so many families choose to use the library, or buy books at sales like this one.

But the squeals of “Look, Mama! Book!” that echoed through the dim warehouse didn’t sound like a death knell to me. In fact, it sounded an awful lot like hope.