Recapturing My Reading Flow

I'm happy to report that after a period of … flatness, I seem to have recaptured my reading flow. I was lucky enough to finish reading Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher right before a weekend during which my husband and daughter went out of town (giving me the gift of a reading weekend). I enjoyed many aspects of Readicide, but the part that is relevant here is in Chapter 3. Gallagher talks extensively about the need to help kids find their "reading flow":

"The flow is where we want all our students to be when they read, the place Nancie Atwell, in The Reading Zone, describes as that place where young readers have to “come up for air”."

This struck me, especially in connection with a post that I wrote a couple of weeks ago musing on whether I am reading for the experience or for the achievement. I realized that I've lost my reading flow. Then I was at the library and spied out of the corner of my eye the third Simon Thorn book by Aimee Carter, remembered that I had enjoyed the first two, and brought it home.

As my reading weekend started, I got about 40 pages into the Simon Thorn book before stopping and thinking "oh, how is this useful?" Then I reminded myself about finding reading flow, and I kept at it. And by the end of the book, I was hooked and eager to finish. Then I read the last 2/3 of The Power by Naomi Alderman in one sitting, after struggling a bit to get into the book when reading in little chunks before bed. I didn't like everything about the book, but it was compelling and thought-provoking.

Then for my next book I chose the ARC of The Story Web by Megan Frazer Blakemore, and author whose work I have always enjoyed (see reviews here, here, here, and here). And this time… I fell headlong into the book. I laughed, I cried, I was unable to resist flagging many passages. I barely paused to go to the bathroom, and hurried back, as though the book was going somewhere. I closed the book and thought: "This! This is what I've been forgetting." It is wonderful, and I highly recommend it.

I read several other books over the course of the weekend, some that I enjoyed more than others, but each one read in pretty much one sitting. And in only one case, in the evening, did I have trouble staying awake while reading (which has been a real problem for me lately). I think that was a combination of it being a less interesting book and my being tired. 

This identifies for me four ingredients for my own personal reading flow: 

1. Reading excellent books. (I also very much enjoyed 48 Hours, the newest book by William R. Forstchen.)
2. Reading in longer, uninterrupted chunks of time (which are admittedly hard to come by when my husband and daughter are at home). 
3. Reading things that I've chosen just because I feel like reading them (and not because I'm trying to learn about something or because I have some obligation to review a particular book). 
4. Reading when I'm not struggling to stay awake. This one interacts with #1 a bit, because sometimes it's the interesting book that keeps me awake. But the real truth is that I'll never find reading flow if the only times I try to read are when I'm in bed half asleep. 

Thank you to Kelly Gallagher and Nancie Atwell for making me think about reading flow. Thank you to Terry Doherty for making me think about whether I am reading for the joy of it or not. Thank you to my husband and daughter for gifting me a quiet reading weekend. Thank you to the San Jose Public Library, Amazon and Bloomsbury for the books. And most of all, thank you to Megan Frazer Blakemore for writing a book that caught me up in its web. The Story Web is about a town (and a family) that's been damaged and the children and animals who work together to repair it. I feel like reading it, at the right time and under the right circumstances, repaired something in me.

Wishing all of you reading flow. 

© 2019 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage. Links to be books may be affiliate links, for which I receive a small commission.