Concerning my blind faith in the power of text

[Hurray, I'm not alone in my book club! And I commend David's ambition to read all his unread books. I'd like to think I'll do the same, but I probably have more than 50 of those, so I'm just going to start small.]


Usually I have a pretty sophisticated (if I do say so myself) sense of the power of literature. Reading, and thinking critically about the act and substance of reading, is to me one of the main ways I feel like I'm really a living being and not just a shuffling piece of meat. Books are valuable above and beyond their ordinary content, as articles of my faith that just the act of reading alone somehow will make everyone who does so a better person.

But, in my darker moments (usually experienced while a baby/child is screaming/crying/yelling NONONONONONONo), I have a different, more basic sense of the power of the text. That is, I have complete and utter confidence, despite many, many examples to the contrary, that reading a book about parenting really will make some kind of difference. And in that spirit, I have two books for today, which I'm counting as one, since I kind of skimmed them: Positive Discipline A-Z and How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk. These are fine books, if a little overreliant on "family meetings," "knowing glances," and cartoons as a substitute for writing, but the content doesn't really matter. Suffice it to say, I'm not a completely different, magical, Dr. Mama Spock Sears Leach Ferber whoever after a single evening's read. But that doesn't mean I don't still believe. On order from Amazon Marketplace? A little volume called: Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy? That one, I think, will be the real deal.

Last Night's Read Aloud: Ruby's Beauty Shop