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The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared (2011)

by Alice Ozma

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7564929,826 (3.56)32
Named for two literary characters ("Alice" from Lewis Carroll and "Ozma" from L. Frank Baum), the author is the daughter of a Philadelphia-area elementary school librarian. Father and daughter embarked on a streak of reading-out-loud sessions every night before bed as Ozma was growing up--a "streak" that would continue for eight years straight.… (more)
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    How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen (mrskatieparker)
    mrskatieparker: Another work focusing on books as a means of emotional connectedness.
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English (47)  Italian (1)  All languages (48)
Showing 1-5 of 47 (next | show all)
I love books about books, so I imagine I'm inclined to rate them a bit high. However, this effort by Alice Ozma relating "The Streak" or how her father read to Ozma nightly for over eight years is a charmer. So I think the rating is not a stretch.
Ozma shares the close relationship she developed over the years with her librarian father and how they started their reading streak. She also comments in almost sterile observations about her mother, her mom's detachment as she withdraws from the family, and the matter-of-fact way that she leaves the home.
The books Ozma's father reads to her over the years become more mature as she ages, but Ozma and her father never hesitate to revisit old favorites from the past. From Pinnochio to L. Frank Baum's OZ books to the Harry Potter series, there are plenty of choices provided to suggest a reading list for your own children or grandchildren, with plenty of encouragement to do just that. ( )
  MugsyNoir | Jul 19, 2023 |
I liked the IDEA of this book more than the book itself. The last pages of the book are a list of some of books that the father-daughter pair read during their reading streak. ( )
  CarolHicksCase | Mar 12, 2023 |
This is a good book--but not the one I was expecting. Alice Ozma and her librarian father started a tradition of him reading to her every night. At first they agreed to do it for one hundred nights--but then decided to keep going and made it past one thousand into a streak that lasted until she went to college.

What I was expecting was a book about books--and a discussion of what books he read. What the book turned out to be was a sweet memoir about being raised by a single Dad who happens to be an extraordinary librarian and an interesting character. The book is about how the act of reading brought them closer. ( )
  auldhouse | Sep 30, 2021 |
This is a really good book. It is written so well and describes the relationship between a father and a daughter. ( )
  EdenSteffey | Mar 14, 2018 |
A warm, tender and at times silly book. Best read slow, a chapter or two at a time.

An appreciation of reading, how it shapes, forms and strengthens life. ( )
  dcmr | Jul 4, 2017 |
Showing 1-5 of 47 (next | show all)
It started out as an ambitious, but achievable, task. A father would read to his nine-year-old daughter 100 nights in a row. Celebrating their victory over breakfast at their favorite greasy spoon, however, the daughter proposed a new challenge, one with a Scheherazadean twist. Why not read for 1,000 nights? But Jim Brozina and his daughter Alice didn't stop at 1,000, just like they didn't stop when Alice's mother ended the marriage, or when her older sister went abroad for a year, or when Alice went to the prom. Only one thing could terminate their routine. When Jim moved Alice into her dorm room, some 3,218 nights later, the Streak, as they called it, came to an end. Ozma has written a memoir as rich and revealing, witty and warm, confident and compassionate as works by people who may have been around a few more blocks but who probably haven't read as many books.
added by kthomp25 | editBooklist, Carol Haggas (Jun 1, 2011)
 
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Epigraph
"I am terribly afraid of falling, myself,' said the Cowardly Lion, "but I suppose there is nothing to do but try it. So get on my back and we will make the attempt."
--L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Dedication
For Avant, Prospectus, and literary magazines everywhere filled with nerdy, wonderful kids—there's hope for us yet.
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Foreword: One warm night in the summer of 1998 I returned from taking a friend and her daughter to a concert in Philadelphia to find my own daughter Alice hopping up and down in the driveway like a madwoman, waving her arms and screaming.
It started on a train.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Named for two literary characters ("Alice" from Lewis Carroll and "Ozma" from L. Frank Baum), the author is the daughter of a Philadelphia-area elementary school librarian. Father and daughter embarked on a streak of reading-out-loud sessions every night before bed as Ozma was growing up--a "streak" that would continue for eight years straight.

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