Inheritance

As we were drawing up Shelby's goals for her first year of high school, I announced that she would finally be delving into really good literature. Both she and Scott cringed because they knew with my background as an English Lit major, my version of really good literature usually means old, boring, and difficult to read.

I love Shakespeare and one of my dreams is to one day sit in The Globe Theater and watch Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare play. But I have never agreed with the notion of forcing students to read the plays by The Bard. They were never written to be read - they were written to be performed. So we have continuously exposed all the children to Shakespeare through summer plays and great DVDs from the library. Of course, once we realized there is an entire graphic novel library for Shakespeare's works, we had to have them for our personal library. I absolutely adore looking over and finding Dawson curled up on the couch re-reading Macbeth or A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shelby knew there wouldn't be any Shakespeare on her list, but she was still concerned at what I would consider "great reading."

Instead, we were focusing on a smattering of authors over the decades. Charolette Bronte. Homer. Mya Angelou. John Knowles. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Harper Lee. Scott shared that he had never read most of these books either, so the two of them are working through her list of 12 books together. Except for The Oddessy by Homer. Scott won't touch that one. Wuss.

Shelby began with A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I wanted her to experience the book because of it's historical references to World War 2 and the way the war affected the boys of the era. But, truly,  I can't stand the book.  I find it as dry as toast and the characters make me crazy. Scott, however read it and thought it was amazing. I was certain there was some resonance for him with the characters as a man, but mostly I was just pleased he enjoyed the book. And then Shelby came to me as if confessing a deep, dark, sin.

"Mom. I like the book. A lot. And I'm really frustrated that I like it."

You see, Shelby and I are as different as different can be. Yes, sometimes that makes for really tense mother/daughter moments. But usually, I enjoy how different we are because I appreciate her perspective on things as it is so far from my own thoughts. She often gives me more to mull over or see than I would have observed on my own.

But for her to like a book that I said she had to read (never mind that she likes the book that I don't) was the equivalent to saying, "Hey mom. You were right." And right now in Shelby's world, that is about the hardest confession to make. Ever.

So, as each book makes its way through her hands I usually only have to wait for a few chapters into the story before she hunts me down to say, "Hey mom - this book is really good!"

A small part of me wants to look at her and say something really cheeky such as: "Duh. The book's only been printed a billion times and read by millions over several decades. But it's nice of you to give your stamp of approval."

Another small part of me wants to say: "SEE! I do know something!"

But mostly, I am just really, really enjoying the camaraderie of sharing books with my daughter. I am appreciating the bridge that is forming between she and I as we find even more common ground. That as different as we tend to be, we are actually a lot more alike on the inside than I think either one of us would have realized otherwise.

Scott and I have always approached books with the idea that we would eat beans for a week to afford a good book. I just never expected this love of reading to become the inheritance for our children that it has. It never occurred to me that when all else failed for conversation between my 37 year old self and my 14 year old daughter, there would still be books.