My earliest memory of reading dates back to roughly first grade, and it was more of a recurring event. Each night before bed, my father would read a book of our choice to my sister and me.
Although, one series quickly became the most voted after we realized the potential of entertainment possible with just a book. This series was the “Berenstain Bears” written by Jan Berenstain and Stan Berenstain. The reason for the quickly gaining popularity between my sister Bella and me was due to my dad’s implementation of unique voices for each character in the book. For example, each time Small Bear spoke or “Baby Bear” as my dad would say, it was in a high pitched helium-filled like voice, for Mama Bear he for some reason shifted to a southern twang and dialect, whereas Papa Bear was a baritone, throaty, bass-filled voice. He was usually never able to read a chapter of the short children’s book without laughing hysterically and my sister and I more than reciprocated this. On top of the voices often came a reenactment of the scenes or random inclusion of one of our names alongside a subject not mentioned in the book to make us even more amused and caught off guard. By the end of the book, there were often tears streaming down our faces and we were more awake than when we sat down for bed. My mother would come into the room and yell at both my dad and us that we should be winding down for bed yet more often than not the fun often pursued. I recall feelings of joy, merriment, and gratitude for the times my dad, sister and I shared with literature. My father’s ability to bring to life and further personify the bear characters truly made each piece of literature a memorable and blissful experience.
He attempted similar entertainment with other books; “Amelia Bedelia” by applying a posh British accent to each and every character with variation only coming based on the tone of his voice, “The Magic Tree House” consisted of more play on words, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” series would seemingly never end given he imagined other things the mouse may want with each item, and the list goes on. But none of these efforts would ever top the “Berenstain Bears”.
However, what each instance did teach me was the endless possibilities, value, and merit that literacy can provide. I was taught that words can be expanded into endless forms of entertainment via imagination, creativity, and a desire to learn more about the formalist, historical-biographical, and moral-philosophical approaches to reading. I believe to be a proper reader all literary approaches must be cycled in a text to gain further understanding, and at the same time, one’s imagination is often necessary for enjoyment as I learned firsthand at an early age. To this day, one of my least favorite parts of growing older would be the lack of Baby Bear, Mama Bear, and Papa Bear voices being used in readings as I once heard each night thanks to the small times of leisure my father and I shared.