Guest Post: Phoebe Kitanidis

I'm truly happy to have Phoebe Kitanidis guest posting today here. First, she's one of my favorite authors and one of the kindest I have ever had the opportunity to talk to. Second, today is her birthday—what makes all this even more special, right? Third, Whisper, her debut book released this year on April 27th, is amazing and super well-written. I love it to death! I hope you all enjoy reading what she kindly wrote for our Challenge guest post.

The Day That Reading Was Cool

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I’m writing this guest-post while eating a warm slice of peach pie. (I’d love to send you some, if such things were possible!) My guy baked it for my birthday, because fresh ripe peaches bursting with juice are a summer treat I adore. So are beach bonfires, ice cold watermelon, night swimming, parades, 4th of July fireworks, and lounging on a blazing beach with a stack of novels. Still, as much as I love all these things, I’ve never seen myself as a “summer person.” Maybe it’s because growing up, my summers were spent visiting relatives back in Greece, far away from my home, my best friends… and my books.

For me packing for those trips was an art form unto itself. Knowing I’d be spending three months in a country with no English-language kids books, I crammed my clothes in as tight as possible to make room for the maximum number of novels. Then, there was the issue of which books made the cut. Just a twist ending or non-stop action wasn’t enough. Re-read value was a must. I needed characters I could live with, worlds I could walk around in all summer. Sitting on my grandmother’s balcony in Athens, or lying on my stomach on a sandy island beach, I read and reread the works of Lois Lowry, Christopher Pike, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Judy Blume, etc. till they literally fell apart. Even then, I couldn’t bear to part with my favorites, and stuffed the pieces back into my suitcase to take back to America.

Back then, most of my friends didn’t share my craving for books. They looked at me funny when I said I usually finished all the books I brought in the first week. So while I loved reading, I never used to connect it with community or friendship. If anything, I thought my love of reading made me stand a little apart. But in a post-Harry Potter, post-Twilight world, with today’s vibrant culture of book bloggers and online book clubs, that’s changed. I’ve been thrilled to watch the blossoming of a new kind of reader pride. I see it all around me. It’s also been happening in my own perspective, the way I no longer view my reading habit as odd or antisocial.

It didn’t happen all at once, but certain moments stand out for me as turning points. I’d like to share one with you. An excerpt from my (then private) blog written on July 21, 2007, the day Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out:

Today was a day for readers everywhere. Since I had tons of work to do though, I told myself I’d read it tomorrow or next week. Minutes later I caught myself searching for spoilers online. And before I could scroll down and find out who dies in the final battle, something in me said, "No! I don't want to be spoiled. This work can wait. For one day it is normal in my culture to do nothing but read, ie what I do every day, and I will be a part of that". So I marched down to my itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, miraculously-still-has-great-inventory local bookstore and bought a copy.

It weighed a ton. As soon as it was in my hand, I felt a surge of excitement. I wandered down the street to the coffee shop with it and began to read, ignoring my latte for hours. At the tables across from me other people were doing the same thing. Exactly the same. Same book! It was almost creepy. Like in the old days when there was only one TV channel and everyone in the country watched the same show. How strange and wonderful to be reading a novel and feel like I fit in perfectly with everyone around me. Sometimes when I’m reading, I have guilty moments of remembering all the stuff I probably “should” be doing instead. Today it was the opposite. I felt 100% free to lose myself in this world of fantasy. I didn’t even care that the book made me tear up in that café. Laughing and crying over a book is just part of being me… but for once I wasn’t the only one.

When the cafe closed, I knew without a doubt that the other readers were going home to finish reading HP7, just like I was. I read the last page that night in bed, beside a purring grey crescent on my white comforter, rooftops catching rain outside my bedroom window. A magical day. I felt like—well, it would be dumb to say I felt like a kid again… because it was way better than being a kid.

Your turn: do your friends and family share your love of books? Is reading considered cool or nerdy among those you know?

Best of luck to all in the Summer Reading Challenge!

I can't thank you enough, Phoebe. You're awesome! Happy birthday, favorite!
P.S.: Happy Birthday, Erica (from The Book Cellar)!