This Christmas vacation I rediscovered my love of reading for myself. While I have always loved reading and connecting to the texts I taught, reading for pleasure was something I always put on the back burner.

Since I began teaching over a decade ago I have always saved reading for pleasure for my summer, instead saving time to re-read novels and texts I taught in class during the school year. The same went for holiday breaks. I always approached the break as a well-earned chance to relax and recharge away from academic work (admittedly, grading and some planning has always been done) and intellectually thinking. Granted, for much of my teaching career I was also coaching basketball, which takes up a big chunk of break. However, I always shied away from reading during breaks – thinking I didn’t want to challenge myself to critically think and engage a text because my mind “needed a break.”

This vacation I found myself engrossed in reading like I haven’t been since I was an undergraduate 20 years ago. I was part of a Carondelet on-line reading group for The Hate U Give. I read a collection of short stories by Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat. I read a collection of poems about being black, male, and gay in America. My sister also gave me a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea in which the madwoman in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eye is the focus. We plan on reading together in the near future and I’m excited to share my thoughts on it with the English department for a possible supplemental novel. I also read a new translation from my favorite Haitain author, Franketienne, titled Dezafi. I was so into the book that at one point, as I sat reading in a chair amidst family visiting and playing games my mom smiled and commented “you always devoured books.”

My mom’s comment got me thinking. I haven’t read like this since I flew threw 10 of Steinbeck’s novels in a course as an undergraduate. Her comment got me reflecting on my career as a reader. If I’m hooked, I always devour my books in a few days. However, if I’m not fully engaged it becomes a chore to get through the book. I remember being turned off by the beginning of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. However, I pushed through and not only do I love teaching the novel, I am engrossed by the plot and Wilde’s voice and style. As an adolescent and in my 20s that was always the problem, finding more literature I would be engaged by. Furthermore, I was also reminded of how I have to give literature a real chance and read it or I might miss out on something like Dorian Gray’s story.

In turn, this thinking got me thinking about my students as readers. Complaints about not connecting to books, not seeing themselves in books, or this book is boring is what what many students cite for why they don’t like reading. So, it comes down to finding books or creating spaces for my students to find texts they are engaged in. This is exactly what I am trying in my new Voices of the Oppressed course this semester as students will have freedom of major texts as a group and as individuals pending my approval. My thinking also reminds me about needing to encourage students to fight through their initial reactions to give a piece of a literature a chance. I always tell my students “you may not like everything we read in class, but I promise if you give the books a chance you will connect with and like one or more.”

This past weekend after my “reading-eyes” were a little weary, I decided to focus on another text – film. I am a strong believer in cinematography as another text and language that adds a richness to my English curriculum. As such, I decided to re-watch three films that focus on the “other” and humanizing them. First, I watched Moonlight (which connects to The Hate U Give). Then, I viewed Winter Bone followed by Manchester by the Sea. All three focus on how the human condition is experienced in bleak realities and how hope and human-connections are truly the binds that tie us together and give us the strength to keep seeking peace in a world that can be antagonistic.

So, in a nutshell I guess despite not being big into New Year’s resolutions, I have made one. I am going to make the time to read for pleasure during the school year. I might even force myself to finish a novel or two I never finished years ago due to not being instantly engaged. If I learned one thing from Christmas break, it’s that I can still multi-task like having the Warriors game on while I have my pencil and book out on my lap in my favorite TV room chair.