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The Reading Promise: 3,218 Nights of Reading with My Father

by Alice Ozma - £16.99  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd (2011)
hardback    ISBN 13: 9781444715248 | ISBN 10: 1444715240

When Alice was nine years old, she and her father - a beloved school librarian - made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights. Upon reaching their goal, they celebrated over pancakes, but it was clear that neither wanted to let go of what had become their reading ritual. They decided to continue what became known as The Streak for as long as they possibly could. From L. Frank Baum to Dickens to J.K. Rowling to Shakespeare, Alice's father read to her every night without fail until the day she entered college, a remarkable eight years later.
 
In this deeply affecting memoir, Alice tells the story of her relationship with the extraordinary man who raised her - from his steadying hand on the back of her wobbly bike to his one-man crusade to keep reading in schools - the words they shared and the spaces in between. Alice poignantly illustrates the unbreakable parent-child bond, the books they treasured, and the life lessons learned along the way.

"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 of 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)

(Price & availability last checked: March 2019)