Cool off with some hot books this summer

Are you looking for something fun to do to beat this sweltering Texas summer heat?

Put down the game controllers and pick up a book!

If a book seems too daunting, grab a magazine or newspaper (naturally we prefer the latter). The main thing is you should be reading something. You don’t have to limit yourself to summer, although there is generally more time to engage in page-turning adventures, especially for youngsters while school is out.

As for me, I got tricked into a habit of reading when I was 5 or 6 years old. His name was Willie. He was a ghost who did the most fascinating magic tricks. I know that because he was in a book I read. It was the first book I ever read.

“Spooky Tricks” by Rose Wyler and Gerald Ames and illustrated by Tālivaldis Stubis was published by Scholastic Book Services in 1968. The cover price was 50 cents. I fell in love with that book. I was so determined to find out what that ghost was up to that I pushed myself hard to learn to read the words. It was a life-changing moment the first time I read all 64 pages of that little book by myself. That was the moment I knew I could read and the world suddenly opened up for me in amazing ways.

Not only had Willie helped me learn to read, he also taught me some neat tricks. I learned to write invisible messages with lemon juice and then make them appear with heat. There were other simple tricks, but that’s the only one I can remember five decades later.

I guess it only makes sense that I would grow up to be a writer since I have a life-long love of reading. Actually, my becoming a writer is somewhat ironic. I was never any good with grammar. I never got higher than a “C” in any grammar classes.

The English language and I don’t play well together. I am more its adversary than ally. Every day I sit down at my computer and do a dance across the blank page much like two knife-wielding gang members handcuffed together in a duel. Instead of blood, I spill ink.

Still, my love for writing, and journalism in general, stems from my passion for reading. Throughout my primary and secondary school years, my reading levels have always been way ahead of the curve. For a kid who hated school and did poorly in every other subject, that made me something of an academic oddity.

I read my first full-length novel in the fifth grade. It was a Lone Ranger book. When I got into junior high, I was into books based on movies I had seen. I was a regular at this little book store we had in my hometown. One day while looking through the used books, I found a copy of “Raise the Titanic” by Clive Cussler. I sank my teeth into it. I went back and got all of the previous Dirk Pitt adventures I could find. Cussler was instantly my favorite author. I have read almost every book he has written, including the more recent ones posthumously penned by his co-authors.

As much as I love to read and as advanced a reader as I am, one problem I have is my speed. I am a very slow reader. I can’t read any faster than one does reading aloud. It’s painful at times to be so slow, but on the other hand I absorb much more of what I’m reading because it has the time to soak into my brain.

Sandy, my wife, is a very voracious reader. She can read really fast. It’s not unusual for her to knock out a book in an evening or two. The same book might take me weeks to tread through.

And our passion for reading has been passed to our children. I really enjoyed the bonding time books provided with them when they were little. I remember my mother doing that for me. It was great. Every young child who is read to does better in school. At least that’s what numerous studies tell us.

For the last several years my reading time has been severely curtailed due to long commutes to work and other commitments. I have taken advantage of that commute time to listen to audio recordings of books. I now count that as reading. That’s about an hour a day I get to enrich my life during a time that would normally be bogged down in tedious boredom.

I’ve made some amazing discoveries since I began listening to audiobooks in 2009. I’ve listened to entire series including Harry Potter (twice), Left Behind, Ender’s Game, Brad Thor’s Scot Harvath, most of Brad Meltzer’s thrillers and non-fiction books, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, and nearly every book put out by Zig Ziglar, Dave Ramsey, Andy Weir, and so many more.

I read/listen to a healthy mix of self-help, non-fiction, biography, thriller, science-fiction, and so on. But the one book I have read and loved the most is the Bible. I have a habit of beginning my days reading it over breakfast and a cup of hot coffee and then going into a time of prayer. I have read the Bible all the way through several times now and I have no plans to quit.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that this world of words has made such a huge impact on my life, all because I was curious to know what a little ghost named Willie was up to in a children’s magic book.

Thank you, Willie! I hope our paths will cross again someday. And I hope you encourage more kids to read, no matter how far out of print you are by now.

Joe Southern is the managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com.