FINDING TIME TO READ

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

If you don’t have a young reader in your home, you may not be aware that April 12th is Beverly Cleary’s birthday. The author of the Ramona Quimby series is celebrated each year as National D.E.A.R. Day. D.E.A.R. stands for Drop Everything and Read. Many elementary school students discover this activity experienced by Ramona Quimby with her class is Ramona Quimby, Age 8. D.E.A.R. Day could be any day. Dare I suggest, it might be every day? But what if we just don’t have the time to read every day?

Suppose we managed to work in a thirty minute wedge of time in our daily schedule to simply sit and read every day. I don’t think it’s that difficult. You’re doing it now. Imagine you were reading a short story or a chapter of that novel you’ve heard others talk about.

No time? Hmm, I am betting if someone knocked on our door – whether it be at home or at work – and when answering it, we found ourselves alone with a friend we haven’t seen in a while, and that friend we’d lost touch with said, “I only have a half hour before my flight, could you manage to squeeze me in for a short visit?” that we’d make the time.

What if at the door, it were one of your favorite authors? Would you say, “Gee, sorry, Mr. Bradbury.”?

Right now you’re at the computer. Maybe you’re home or sitting in a coffee shop or the park. Maybe this is break time at work. You may not have a full thirty minutes. Maybe it’s only 15. In fifteen minutes, you could be looking at anything or nothing at all. Or you could be on an adventure with Alan Treviscoe via James Lincoln Warren. Traveling through a mountain pass along with Leigh Lundin or as listening as Angela Potts solves a mystery Sheriff Charles “Chunky” Jones hasn’t yet with John M. Floyd. Rob Lopresti could be sharing a story about a man who spent the last twenty-five years of his life in a prison. Steven Steinbock could be at that door wanting to read his story from the March/April 2010 issue of Ellery Queen!

If you’re like me, the time you find for reading may be just as you begin your workday or perhaps only long after the regular grind has ended.

Here at the Criminal Brief headquarters, it’s quiet. Time has frozen for a magical thirty minutes. I think I’m going to take advantage of this time before it thaws and the real world rushes back into focus.

We have plenty of room on the cyber sofa. Help yourself and choose from the stack of books just behind you on the shelf. It’s okay, take whatever makes you the happiest to read.

In case you have a different problem and being forced to read, here’s a solution that just may work.