Author: Vivian J. Willinger
Tucked away, near the entrance of the Tempe Public Library, is a bookstore stocked with donated books and staffed by volunteers from the Friends of the Library. At its front are four moveable racks with older fiction and non-fiction books – priced at six for a dollar or one for 25- cents.
Ten steps inside are bookshelves, along opposite walls, filled with new novels. Another ten steps to the left are books on art, animals, travel, history, biography, photography, science fiction, self-help, and more. Across from those books is a wall of children’s books. All the hardcover books cost two dollars; the softcovers go for one dollar.
I volunteer at the bookstore for one afternoon shift each week and see all kinds of booklovers and bargain-hunters. The older woman who comes in every week for a half dozen romance novels. The youngster who collects Harry Potter books. The middle-aged, pony-tailed man who scoops up 25-cent books and flirts with any unwary woman. The teen-aged boy seeking a complete set of The Lord of the Rings. The “profiteers” who scan the books in the store, use their iPhones to check resale prices, and buy box-loads of books. The parents with their little kids rooting among the children’s books.
And then, last week, there was a young woman who asked, in a heavy foreign accent, for recommendations of books to help her master English. As my shift-mate steered her towards Young Adult fiction, I was suddenly awash in memories of how my immigrant parents learned English.
My Hungarian parents arrived in New York City during the Great Depression. For them, learning to speak English was a full immersion, sink-or-swim experience – on the street, in the factory, at the movies, by the radio. Learning to read English? My mother started by looking at the centerfold photo section of the tabloid newspaper, the New York Daily News, and figuring out the meaning of the snappy headlines and under-captions. Soon, she graduated to gossip columns with their staccato style and short phrases; later, she read stories in movie magazines and picture-magazines like Life and Look. My father’s taste was more elevated: he concentrated on the New York Times as his reading instructor.
The only books in my childhood home were a twelve-volume encyclopedia and a compilation of Mother Goose tales. As a toddler, my favorite toy was a set of alphabet blocks. I spent hours playing with them, memorizing and repeating aloud all the letters of the alphabet. In kindergarten, I sounded out the letters I recognized on the pages of children’s books. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to read.
In grade school, I loved the “library hour” and spent a lot of time with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. When I got my own Public Library card, a whole new world of books came within reach – real literature, history, anything I wanted to learn. I became a reader for life. Now, looking at my bookstore shift-mate and the young immigrant woman perusing the Young Adult Section, I thought, “No, that jacked-up genre isn’t good enough for her; she deserves something better.” And I found it: a softcover collection of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories. Handing her the book, I told her she would find his style/vocabulary simple and easy to understand even though his subject matter might be more complicated.
She knew who Hemingway was; her husband had mentioned him to her. But she hesitated. I said to her, “It’s truly good literature for a grownup reader. What better way to learn the language than from one of its masters? Anyway, what have you got to lose? It only costs a dollar.”
She nodded and bought the book. Reader, that is what I call a happy ending.
