Raising Lifelong Readers

A bookish buddy interview with my son

With Silas in NYC

Dearest Readers,

Today’s post is coming to you from hot and humid Michigan! My daughter and I are currently in the Midwest visiting friends, and last week found me in Chicagoland where I attended the Write to Publish conference at Wheaton College and simultaneously connected with a handful of my dearest friends in the area.

Despite cicada infests, hurricane warnings, and the aforementioned humidity (the Idaho girl in me is balking), the fellowship in the two states has been incredibly sweet—thank you to those who opened their homes and/or made time to share a meal. Your friendship is precious to me.

I also made many new connections at the writing conference including two literary agents with whom I’m now corresponding—exciting! I love growing my writing community.

I’ll likely post more about the conference in the coming weeks, but for today I have a very special guest and interview with one of my dearest bookish buddies: my oldest son, Silas.

Being avid readers, my husband and I have tried to foster a literary atmosphere in our home. From literature-centered homeschooling, bookshelves spilling over with titles, and reading aloud as a family (especially in the early years), books have been a mainstay in our home.

I believe our attempts have borne fruit. While their literary consumption varies, all our children indeed enjoy books. Today Silas will talk a bit about his own reading journey and its influence on his spiritual development. I hope you will be encouraged; our efforts as parents to raise lifelong readers are not in vain!

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Thank you for being here, Silas! Clearly, I’m well acquainted with you and a few of my readers know you personally as well. But for those who don’t, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and where this season of life finds you.

Sure. My name is Silas Link. I’m currently an undergraduate student going into my junior year at Columbia University where I study English Literature and Medieval and Renaissance Studies. So, I think it's fair to say that books and literature play a fairly important role in my life!

Quite true. I love the path you are taking; it is definitely indicative of who you are. You’ve always been a voracious reader, even as a young child. What would you say are your earliest memories of reading and books?

It's hard for me to distinguish my earliest reading memories. Books have always been such a significant part of my life that it's difficult for me to reach back. I always liked being read to, and I vaguely recall that as I gained proficiency in reading it was amazing to immerse myself in a book without someone else's help.

Since we homeschooled when I was young, a lot of that reading stands out to me. We read mountains of historical fiction. I also remember that we had a number of nonfiction illustrated books about people from various regions around the world. I would flip through those books for hours, fascinated by different cultures and geographies. Countries, people, time periods, natural features…I’ve always been intrigued by anything different than my own lived experience.

What were some of your favorite books or genres as a child, say before the teen years? How did those books form you?

There were three main genres I found myself drawn to as a child, and I think they were all typical for a young boy. The first were exciting adventure stories. Some of my favorites were Swiss Family Robinson and the numerous installments of Sherlock Holmes. There was also an excellent retelling of some classic stories of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle that I loved. The second genre that I enjoyed was historical fiction. I read several of these by G. A Henty.

Lastly, I enjoyed quite a bit of fantasy, most notably Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and, even more significantly for my imagination, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Most fantasy-type books I read afterwards were measured up to these. I found myself liking fantasy that felt real, had some grit, and an almost tastable texture to it. Those stories seemed to bleed into everyday life in a way others didn’t. They offered an enchantment of the world around me instead of an escape from the realities of life.

How about when you moved into middle and high school? What books stand out and how were they formational?

I think the book that mentally marks the transition from boyhood to the teen years in my mind is Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. It was the oldest full-length book I had ever read (besides the Bible) and the first autobiographical novel I read. Most importantly, it was the first book I read where I truly related to the protagonist. Overall, it opened a new world of literature to me that I wasn’t familiar with at that time: classics, deeply personal narratives, and, as opposed to contemporary historical fiction, writing from the past itself.

All these things were fleshed out even more as I moved into high school. There, I was exposed to a good deal of great literature and became acquainted with the history and context of it. I developed a much deeper and richer understanding of what I read. It was also through high school that I began to read classic books of philosophy and theology.

Overall, I think the books I read during my teen years formed me in a few major ways. The first is simply that I learned to love books and literature and everything in them. I had enjoyed reading before, being able to hear stories and be entertained with words, but during high school I learned to love literature, philosophy, and books themselves. From great epics such as Homer and Virgil to more modern novels from authors like Jane Austin and Harper Lee, I began to love words and language, to feel at home in literary traditions.

Beyond this, through books I grew in my understanding of people, including myself. Writing, like all art, is deeply personal. When you open a book, you read the author’s thoughts. You learn to see the world from the perspective of an ancient playwright, a medieval lady-in-waiting, an enlightenment mathematician, a woman writing novels in secret during the Victorian era, a pious Russian orthodox man who nonetheless has PTSD, a gambling addiction, and a drinking problem.

You learn to be understanding and empathetic, and you also come to realize how drastically different you are from others throughout history. In turn, you start refining your own thoughts, and being careful and conscious when you consider new ones.

Most importantly, I think the books I read in high school helped me grow in my relationship with God. This one is the hardest to pin down since it's so deeply personal and beyond my intellect and thoughts. However, a few things stand out to me. I believe understanding how people think, and the implications of those thoughts helped me see how important God is for us as humans. To see the difference in worldview between a Christian writer and a non-Christian writer was helpful for me since I had grown up in the Church and had known Christ from a very young age.

On top of that, reading some of the early Church Fathers and other deeply intellectual non-fiction works from Origen to Augustine to C. S. Lewis helped me form a mental framework for what I believe and feel confident in the reasonableness of it.

I think another powerful way that God drew me to him during this time was through great Christian literary works. The book that stands out to me the most is Dante’s Divine Comedy. While theologically rich, it's not a philosophical work like some of the more intellectual works I mentioned. It's art, and therefore personal. Being able to tie my experience of existing as a person (living day-to-day life, experiencing pain, joy, sorrow and confusion) to the complex theological truths of the Bible through a piece of literature profoundly affected me as a person. It galvanized me to bring God and his truths into my life as experiential (rather than simply intellectual) facts.

Do you think books and reading prepared you for adulthood and college?

I do. I think a lot of the ways they prepared me are just practical applications of what I’ve already talked about. Learning to see things from other people's perspective while still being careful and intentional with their ideas is a big one. College is a hotbed of ideas, true and untrue, some that feel appealing and others that feel appalling. From what I’ve seen, if you can’t “consider ideas without accepting them,” you end up doing one of two things: either converting to a new worldview every other week, or staunchly refusing to consider any new thoughts. Early exposure to reading and ideas helped me not fall into either of those camps.

On another note, I think simply learning to love books has made working through 200 pages of Kant in a day and reading a novel every other class a lot easier to stomach!

What is on your current TBR list and/or what you are currently reading?

Ah yes, the TBR list! Unfortunately, mine is six pages long right now so I can’t share it all here. However, Goethe’s Faust and Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel! are two that I’m looking forward to!

Currently, I’m reading The Tale of Genji, an 11th Century Japanese novel and Kierkegaard’s existentialist reflection on faith, Fear and Trembling. I’ve also been re-reading the Lord of the Rings for the summer!

Do you have a favorite book or books you recommend?

My favorite books are probably David Copperfield and The Divine Comedy. They are favorites because of personal significance, but they are both masterpieces. I don’t have a single set of books that I recommend. However, I recently read Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again which is a beautiful, reflective novel and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, a classic of contemporary Russian literature, which is both a magical realism novel and a revolutionary anti-Soviet critique.

So, in other words, light beach reads? You really are a book nerd! Thanks for taking the time for your dear old mother, Silas.

My pleasure, Mom. 😊

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Thank you, friends, for joining me for another bookish buddy interview. Watching my children take the love of books into their teen and adult years is a blessing. I hope today’s post has encouraged you to not grow weary in pressing those books into your children’s hands and hearts.

The reward is worth our effort!

Until next time,

Tiffany