Rudine Sims Bishop is an author and professor emerita at Ohio State University. She served on the 1992 American Library Association’s Newbery Award Committee, the 1999 Caldecott Award Committee, and is currently on the Coretta Scott King Awards jury. She recently wrote an essay for our Open a World of Possible initiative, reflecting upon an early experience with reading. We've repurposed the essay here. The full version is also available in our new Open a World of Possible book, which you can download for free here.
"My parents grew up in the South early in the 20th century. Neither of them made it past fourth grade. Recognizing that their lack of schooling limited their life opportunities, they were determined that, through education, I would have a chance at a better life. I was expected—no, required—to do well in school. So when I went off to first grade, I dutifully learned to read—with Dick and Jane, whose bland, repetitive stories were uninspiring to say the least.
It was at the public library that I discovered the joy of reading. There I spent hours browsing the shelves in the children’s room, reading whatever caught my imagination. I remember somewhere around third grade devouring the Andrew Lang Fairy Books, and as a preteen, reading books such as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights that I’m sure I did not understand at the time. What I did understand was the pleasure that good stories offer and the power of books to introduce me to lives and experiences beyond my own. I was “hooked on books,” as the saying goes.
Even as a youngster, though, I had felt the absence in books of people who looked and lived like me. I went on to become an elementary teacher and later a teacher educator. One of my early research articles featured an interview with a ten-year-old African American girl who loved to read and told me she was searching in books for “strong black girls” like herself. She confirmed for me the capacity of reading to affirm, to inform, and to empower.
I consider it a blessing that reading, an activity that brings such great pleasure, was also at the heart of what I did for a living."
