Loving Words - Sara Allen

During summer beach vacations when I was a little kid, my mother was a stickler for one rule: no swimming for at least one hour after lunch. Given the chance, my brothers and I would have spent all summer in the ocean, so to tame our grumbling about not being in the water, my mother invited us to her bedroom where we all piled on her bed after the noontime meal. That’s when a kind of magic happened. She read the words of A. A. Milne and Beatrix Potter and Kenneth Grahame and E. B. White out loud to us. She had a flair for reading stories. Some of it was theater training, some of it was natural. We settled in and listened to her vibrant, comforting voice inside that room. Outside, through the open windows, came the sound of the surf, the scent of salt air, and the tickle of sea breeze.

My mother acquainted me with many friends. My pals, Pooh, Piglet, Owl, Eeyore, Peter, Jeremy, Jemimah, Toad, Mole, Stuart, Wilbur and Charlotte all had excellent vocabularies, and they gave me a love for words and language that has stayed with me my entire life. I think some of the finest lines in all of literature are at the end of Charlotte’s Web. This is how Wilbur describes Charlotte: “She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

This summer, whenever you have an hour after lunch, read to someone or have someone read to you or read to yourself. I implore you to do this with gusto, gratitude and love. Savor the words.

May everyone, everywhere find a safe space to read this summer.