Terrorizing Children With The Power Of Reading

I think the best thing J.K. Rowling has done is compel children to read again. Before her famous series was published, I rarely saw a kid under 10 years of age read something consisting of 400+ pages. Nowadays it's almost become a fad to read about that boy with the scar on his forehead, and it's not uncommon for people to react in outrage against someone who hasn't read the books.

[Note: Details about the following story have been changed and altered for privacy reasons so that it won't come back to haunt anyone.]

When I was in elementary school, one year my grade attended a weekly reading class, held in a library and, surely enough, taught by the librarian. Some days the librarian would read to us, other days she would let us select one of the children's books off the shelves and read on our own for twenty minutes. Pretty cool, eh?

Wrong.

I remember one snowy day walking down into that basement library to find the librarian staring at us, eyes bloodshot under hooded lids. The temperature in the room seemed chillier than usual that day, the lights slightly dimmer. The corners of her lips were tilted downward as she watched us silently file into our regular seating arrangements. The entire atmosphere screamed doom. I wouldn't have been surprised if a raven had croaked apocalyptic warnings to us upon entry.

We looked back at her, sensing already that this wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. "Okay," she finally began. "Today we're going to be reading a story about a cow."

Someone coughed.

"QUIET!" She roared.

Now remember, this was winter season, and we were kids. Kids are practically germ magnets during this period, constantly sniffling, coughing, and sneezing on each other to point where it basically becomes forgettable background noise. Later on when I was coaching kids who were this age, it seemed like at least 40% of my class was battling some type of minor virus or germ every single week of winter. So when our librarian seemed irked that day to the point of pure fury at each and every little cough, we were flabbergasted.

Even after we tried muffling our coughs into our shirts or sleeves, she had still been driven to the breaking point. Two pages into the story about the cow, she snapped the book shut and said: "Okay, this is getting ridiculous. If you have to cough, cough it all out now and get it over with. Because after I start this story again, if I hear one more cough... that's it. Storytime's over. I'll stop and you'll have to spend the rest of the period in Quiet Time."

No. Not that. Anything but the dreadful Quiet Time. At that age, being forced to sit in complete silence is the equivalent of throwing holy water on that girl in The Exorcist. So, hilariously, we obliged. We all started coughing, hoping that by hacking violently away then, that our germ reserves would be depleted to the point where it would take awhile for them to rekindle enough strength, hopefully waiting until after the story was done.

When we thought we were through, she gritted her teeth, re-opened the book, and pressed on.

I remember very little about the story. It had something to do with a spirited young cow who had somehow escaped her confinement to pursue a series of adventures. The cow traveled around, met unique personalities, and generally just kept on getting into trouble. I think.

The entire time I was fighting that familiar tickle in the back of my throat. I needed so desperately to cough to the point where my ears were ringing. My lungs ached and I had broken out into a cold sweat. I clamped my jaw down, willing myself not to break the silence. I looked over at another classmate and almost burst out laughing: he was trying so hard not to purge his lungs that his face had turned to the color of a grape. Veins popped out on his shiny forehead, and his eyes were bulging with the strain.

When we got to the point where the cow had managed to become trapped in the bottom of a well, someone broke; a muffled cough had managed to escape one student -- a shy, mousy girl in glasses -- who rarely talked. She immediately paled and lowered her head in shame.

"THAT'S IT!" the librarian bellowed. She slammed the book shut and shot us that hooded gaze once again. "Can't say I didn't warn you. We're stopping there."

A few students cried out that this wasn't fair.

This didn't sway the librarian in the slightest. "Not fair? Coughing occasionally is natural, but every few seconds? That's deliberate. It was your choice. Now we'll never know what happened to the cow, will we? How did she get out? Did they fill the well with water and have her float out? Did they pull her out with ropes? Or was she stuck down there forever?" She shrugged. "Guess it'll always be a mystery." At that she put the book away and left us to sulk in Quiet Time.

---

And you know what? I never did find out what happened to that damn cow. All these years later and still no luck. The worst part is I don't know the title of the book, so I can't go look it up and find out. So if anyone reading this knows about that story or at least what it's called, let me know so that tale can finally be put to rest!

I didn't think on the incident too often back then (by then we were used to a few teachers bringing their personal problems to work), but the older I get, the more amazed I am at what happened. Stopping a story because of sick kids? Seriously? Seriously!?

I think it was Stephen King who said (maybe in his book On Writing) that in order to write, one must read. I agree entirely. Read often. Read from a variety of authors. If something in particular grabs your attention, pay attention to how the author pulled you in. Enjoy it.

Even if you are discouraged by a raging librarian having a bad day... read anyway.