"The Readenest Child You Ever Did See…”
“The readnesest child you ever did see,”
Just the opposite of the she that was me.
“Silent reading time,” Mrs. Butler would say,
The favorite part of many of my fellow third-graders’ day.
But not mine.
For me, reading meant racing the others to see
Who would be,
The Pages Read (red) champion, never me.
A slow reader I was, kind of killed the reading buzz
Because
I thought I was inferior
Because my reading log numbers weren’t superior.
Little did I know,
It was interest, not skill
That delayed my completion
of getting that log to fill.
Not my lack of speed,
That kept me from wanting to read.
Though books were a plenty,
None starred little brown girls
With ebony, kinky curls,
barrettes and bows,
and a fear of ashy elbows.
No heroines for me
To see me on the page,
So my natural response
Was to stay off the reading stage.
Until,
Until many years later with professors
and friends
and roommates
and sorors
awakened my being to all the
Little Ruby Bridges,
The Maya Angelou’s.
Langston’s telling verses made Harlem come alive and
Zora Neal Hurston made my eyes want to watch God.
While Baldwin gave me something to go tell on the mountain,
Ntozake Shange told me the rainbow was enough so considering anything else would not do.
“The readenest child you ever did see,”
Became the readenest, writingest, teachingest truly grown woman, you ever did see.
‘Cause finally, I could see me.
*Inspired by Lou Heck’s Demonstration, Mining of Nuggets. This quote was captured and posted by another student, made ready for the taking!
