The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared

by Alice Ozma, Jim Brozina Narrated by Alice Ozma

Overview

When Alice Ozma was in 4th grade, she and her father decided to see if he could read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights. On the hundreth night, they shared pancakes to celebrate, but it soon became evident that neither wanted to let go of their storytelling ritual. So they decided to continue what they called "The Streak." Alice's father read aloud to her every night without fail until the day she left for college.

Alice approaches her book as a series of vignettes about her relationship with her father and the life lessons learned from the books he read to her.

Books included in the Streak were: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and Shakespeare's plays.

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2011 - AudioFile

Author Alice Ozma reveals the secrets of her “reading streak." She and her father bet they could read together for 100 nights, but they ended up reading for 3,218 consecutive nights, ending when Alice entered college. Her father, school librarian Jim Brozina, narrates the foreword, chapter headings, and book list. Listeners will understand why Alice kept the streak going: His twangy, gnomish voice is enchanting, and he lavishes praise on his daughter and the benefits of reading aloud. Ozma is not a professional narrator, but this story would have less emotional impact without her personal interpretation. Her arch tone effectively illuminates her childhood world, inviting us to remember our own reading odysseys. Through her humorous remembrances, Ozma proves that reading can be a member of the family. C.A. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

"Persuasive and influential, poignant and inspirational, Ozma's exuberant paean to the joys and rewards of reading— and being read to— is a must-read treasure for parents, especially, and bibliophiles, certainly." -Booklist, starred review

"This is the perfect book to hand any curmudgeon who needs reminding that reading makes a difference or thinks that today's youth are all blase. Highly recommended." -Library Journal, starred review

"Ozma's work is humorous, generous, and warmly felt, and with a terrific reading list included, there is no better argument for the benefits of reading to a child than this rich, imaginative work." -Publisher's Weekly

"A warm memoir and a gentle nudge to parents about the importance of books, quality time and reading to children." -Kirkus Reviews

"Alice Ozma has given us the gift of a remarkable love story. In her love of books, and of her father, we see the most-meaningful promises we might make to our own parents, our own children, and to ourselves." -Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor, The Last Lecture

"Tender, funny, and deeply readable, THE READING PROMISE tells the story of how a simple ritual became a treasured father-daughter tradition. Promise yourself to revisit what matters...promise you'll pick up this tribute to the ways in which books change lives." - Erin Blakemore, author of The Heroine's Bookshelf

This is about so much more than books and reading. It's about single-parenthood and childhood, about raising a loving, witty, articulate kid, and all of it accomplished without anyone turning into the Alpha-Parent/Tiger-Dad. -Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook

"THE READING PROMISE is a powerful testament to the difference a parent's devotion and the act of reading can make in a child's life. A rare and triumphant story." - Chris Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Pursuit of Happyness

JUNE 2011 - AudioFile

Author Alice Ozma reveals the secrets of her “reading streak." She and her father bet they could read together for 100 nights, but they ended up reading for 3,218 consecutive nights, ending when Alice entered college. Her father, school librarian Jim Brozina, narrates the foreword, chapter headings, and book list. Listeners will understand why Alice kept the streak going: His twangy, gnomish voice is enchanting, and he lavishes praise on his daughter and the benefits of reading aloud. Ozma is not a professional narrator, but this story would have less emotional impact without her personal interpretation. Her arch tone effectively illuminates her childhood world, inviting us to remember our own reading odysseys. Through her humorous remembrances, Ozma proves that reading can be a member of the family. C.A. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Reading really was fundamental for a father and daughter team who made it their nightly ritual for eight straight years.

The author's name—an amalgam of characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and L. Frank Baum's Oz series—illustrates her profound passion for reading bookshelves of literature from childhood to well into adolescence. In 1997, plucky, headstrong Ozma and her father, an elementary-school librarian, began reading aloud to each other for 1,000 consecutive nights. Dubbed "The Streak," it began when the author was in third grade and lasted 3,218 nights. Ozma's father, a firm believer in the limitless power of books, was overjoyed (and pleasantly surprised) when they'd achieved their initial goal of 100 nights. But then Ozma determinedly upped the ante to 1,000 as their readings graduated from James and the Giant Peach to Shakespeare and Harry Potter. There were stringent "rules" to follow: They had to read for at least 10 minutes, before midnight, preferably in person, and books only—though "anything from magazines to baseball programs would do" in a pinch. Those days, Ozma fondly recalls, incorporated a playful and deeply unifying pastime shared with a man who became not only an interactive parent and friend, but a shoulder to lean on when inconvenience and calamity impeded their endeavors. But nothing could stop them—not the funeral in honor of her pet fish, nor her Dad's laryngitis, nor the painful, physical separation of her mother, who moved out, nor her older sister's absence as a foreign-exchange student. While all were painful memories that Ozma evokes with a hushed despondence, "The Streak" continued unabated until the author moved away to college, majoring in English, almost nine years later.

A warm memoir and a gentle nudge to parents about the importance of books, quality time and reading to children.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173725189
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	05/03/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

List of Books from the Reading Streak

The Last Treasure by Janet S. Anderson
Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
The Barn by Avi
Wish You Well by David Baldacci
Harry the Poisonous Centipede by Lynne Reid Banks
Searching for David’s Heart by Cherie Bennett
A Gathering of Days by Joan W. Blos
Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Trouble River by Betsy byars
The Family under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Murder on the Orient Express and Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman
My Daniel by Pam Conrad
The Wanderer by Sharon Creech
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
James and the Giant Peach, Danny the Champion of the World, and The Minpins by Roald Dahl
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
Great Expectations, The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, and The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
Tales from Silver Lands by Charles J. Finger
Whirligig and The Half-A-Moon Inn by Paul Fleischman
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
The Other Shepards by Adele Griffin
Among the Hidden and Among the Betrayed by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
Indigo by Alice Hoffman
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt
Stormbreaker, Point Blank, Skeleton Key, Ark Angel, and Eagle Strike by Anthony Horowitz
Up a Road Slowly and Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
The Secret Journey by Peg Kehret
In the Stone Circle by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The View From Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
Beyond the Open Door by Andrew Lansdown
Secret in the Woods by Lois Gladys Leppard
Spy X: The Code by Peter Lerangis
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
The Giver and Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry
Journey by Patricia MacLachlan
Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days by Stephen Manes
The Doll People by Ann M. Martin
Good Night, Maman by Norma Fox Mazer
Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
Thomas Jefferson: A Boy in Colonial Days by Helen A. Monsell
It’s Like This, Cat by Emily Neville
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
A Year Down Under by Richard Peck
The Moosepire and Once Upon a Blue Moose by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
Select short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Pawns by Willo Davis Roberts
Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Missing May and The Islander by Cynthia Rylant
Holes by Louis Sachar
The Bears’ House by Marilyn Sachs
A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Among the Dolls by William Sleator
Cat Running by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson
Maniac Magee and The Library Card by Jerry Spinelli
The Mouse of Amherst by Elizabeth Spires
Andy Jackson: Boy Soldier by Augusta Stevenson
Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman
Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt
Each Little Bird That Sings and Love, Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles
The Moonlight Man by Betty Ren Wright
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
[LI_SB]
L. Frank Baum books:
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Marvelous Land of Oz
Ozma of Oz
Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz
The Road to Oz
The Emerald City of Oz
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz
The Scarecrow of Oz
Rinkitink in Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz
The Tin Woodman of Oz
The Magic of Oz
Glinda of Oz
Dot and Tot of Merryland
American Fairy Tales
The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale
Mother Goose in Prose
Queen Zixi of Ix
The Sea Fairies
Sky Island
The Enchanted Island of Yew
The Magical Monarch of Mo
Father Goose: His Book
Little Wizard Stories of Oz
[LI_SB]
Judy Blume books:
Freckle Juice
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Superfudge
Fudge-a-Mania
Double Fudge
The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo
[LI_SB]
Ramona books by Beverly Cleary:
Beezus and Ramona
Ramona the Pest
Ramona the Brave
Ramona and Her Father
Ramona and Her Mother
Ramona Quimby, Age 8
Ramona Forever
Ramona’s World
[LI_SB]
Encyclopedia Brown books by Donald J. Sobol:
Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective
Encyclopedia Brown Strikes Again (aka Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch)
Encyclopedia Brown Finds the Clues
Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man
Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All
Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace
Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day
Encyclopedia Brown Tracks Them Down
Encyclopedia Brown Shows the Way
Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case
Encyclopedia Brown Lends a Hand
Encyclopedia Brown Carries On
Encyclopedia Brown Sets the Pace
Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Disgusting Sneakers
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Dead Eagles
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Midnight Visitor
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Mysterious Handprints
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Treasure Hunt
[LI_SB]
Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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