Ask Amy: A boy reading Judy Blume, and other inspiring tales

A special childhood book can unlock a new world.

Dear Readers: For the past 14 years, I have devoted one December column entirely to the idea of giving books to children on Christmas morning (or whatever wintertime holiday you celebrate).

I was first inspired by a sweet story I read about historian David McCullough’s childhood, where he and his three brothers would wake up on Christmas morning to a wrapped book, left by Santa on the foot of their beds.

I communicated with Mr. McCullough, and from his home in Massachusetts he confirmed the story and generously gave me permission to use his childhood tradition to encourage families to start their holiday by unwrapping a book – and reading together.

That’s the origin story of “A Book on Every Bed,” and in the years I’ve published this appeal (to give books to children, and to start your holiday by reading together), it has grown into a literacy campaign. Schools, libraries, bookstores, churches and community centers have picked up this idea and are helping families to bring books into their households during the holiday season.

My own literacy story starts with my mother, Jane, who, despite some rough circumstances during my childhood, showed her four children that books and literature would always illuminate the way toward better things. She was the person who said to me, “When you have a book, you’re never alone.”

One of my favorite memories of my mother involved catching her reading “Anna Karenina” while seated in the crowded bleachers during a noisy high school basketball game. (Final score: Tolstoy 1, basketball 0.)

I was allowed to get lost in the stacks of our tiny local library, eventually discovering the books that would change my life: the “Childhood of Famous Americans” series (currently published by Simon and Schuster). I plowed through these biographies with the hunger of a young person desperate to read about “real” people who overcame their own childhood challenges and went on to lead extraordinary lives.

Over the years when approaching some of my own literary heroes, they have spontaneously chosen to tell a story about the special book in childhood that unlocked literature’s secrets for them. Like me, they were lucky enough to have at least one adult in their lives who gave them the gift of literacy. Below are edited versions of some of these stories:

Jacqueline Woodson wrote: “My mother wanted us to read constantly but didn’t have the money to buy us ‘piles of books.’

“To have a brand-new book to open at night — it’s crisp unbroken binding, the scent of its pages, the soft rush of air and excitement that comes with turning them — this is my dream for every child.

“A pile of books begins with one. And like a child, it grows.”

LeVar Burton: “Literacy is the birthright of every human being, even in this digital age. I simply want our children to read!”

Dr. Carla Hayden: “Literacy is the ticket to learning, opportunity and empowerment. It’s important that children see themselves in the books they read. Marguerite de Angeli’s ‘Bright April’ allowed me to see myself in a book – a young girl who was a brownie with pigtails – and it inspired me that anything was possible.”

Brad Meltzer: “Growing up, my family didn’t have a ton of money. But my grandmother had one of the most powerful objects in existence: a library card. I still remember her taking me to the public library in Brooklyn, New York.

“It was a day that made my world bigger and immeasurably better. And the best part were the new friends my librarian introduced me to, like Judy Blume and Agatha Christie. ‘Superfudge’ was the first book I ever coveted. But it was Blume’s ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ that rocked my socks. No one understood why I was reading it. But I was a boy trying to figure out how girls worked.

“From there, Judy Blume taught me one of the greatest lessons in life — that you must love yourself for who you are.”

Last Christmas, working with the Children’s Reading Connection (childrensreadingconnection.org), a national literacy campaign based in Ithaca, N.Y., I received the thrill of my own career as a reader and writer by giving each child, teacher and staff member of the rural primary school of my childhood books of their own to take home.

Watching these children clutch their new books tightly was a joy and a reminder that literacy really starts with a human connection.

I hope that readers will be similarly inspired to spread this joy.

You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.