2025/7/31 - DoTTS Faculty 教員コラム
Summertime: What will you do this summer?（L. G. Bond）
Summertime! It is the perfect time to do something you have wanted to do for a long time. It is also the perfect time to do nothing! I would like to share with what I love to do in the summer and what my plans are for the next couple of weeks.
Summer is my favorite time of the year, and it always brings back memories of my childhood. When I was young, my brother and sisters and I would travel with our grandparents to a very small town in southwest Oklahoma to visit our family’s small wheat farm at the beginning of the summer, right before or after the harvest. At the end of the summer vacation, right before school began, we would take a family “camping” vacation for two or three weeks. We would hike, fish, and swim in state and national parks found throughout our region in the United States. As I would get older, I would go to summer camp with the Girl Scouts, and at these camps I would swim, hike, backpack, horse-pack in and out of canyons and mountains. These were fun activities, but I think the most favorite memory of my childhood summer vacations was the weekly trips my mother would take us on to the public library.
Each week on Monday, my mother would load us and our stacks of books into our family car. Each child would announce the number of books we had read during the week. It was a contest among us. Who read the most? Who read the least? And as we got older, it was HOW MANY PAGES in total did each of us read. The library had a summer contest each year, and if a child read more than 25 books, they would get a badge to pin on their shirt. It did not take us long to earn our badges, and we all proudly pinned those badges on each week before we went to the library. Reading both new and old stories each week gave each of us time to dream and explore new worlds. It was also a way our mother could get us to rest and cool down during the hot days of summer. It was a special time and the stories I read, from picture books to more serious non-fiction books, still fill my mind and heart with wonderful memories.
Visiting the library still is one of my favorite things to do! Any time I visit a university, both in Japan and abroad, I always make it a point to visit the library. Some libraries I have visited are like castles, with high ceilings and long wooden tables surrounded by books that appear untouched and closed to the world. Other libraries are like haunted houses, with small winding staircases, narrow passageways and darkened areas that light up only when someone passes by. The noises from the floors, the creaks from the book cases, and the sounds of books being dropped here and there can scare any seeker of a good book. Some libraries I have visited are more like a “manga-kisa” or a Starbucks or Japanese spa resort reading area complete with bean bag chairs, wood-burning fires and coffee stations found in each reading area. And some libraries I have visited, I have been told I could not enter because the stacks are “not open” to anyone that does not work there. Those libraries have always “broken” my heart!
Beyond libraries, another thing I LOVE to do is visit book stores. That is always something I do whenever I travel, both in Japan and abroad. I love to see how books are displayed and what is being promoted or suggested by the people who work in each store. Just like libraries, each bookstore is different. Some are very clean and sterile with just the essential books and magazines on display for sale. Some are a lot of fun to walk through, with new titles mixed in with older best sellers and educational games and toys placed on tables for children to play with and explore. One of my favorite bookstores, like many bookstores, has books placed according to genres or topics, but the bookstore is quite unique. It has picture books and children’s books with similar themes to the adult books placed at a child’s eye level, while the books for the adult reader are placed at the eye level of an adult. If a parent wants to look at books about travel, there are books placed at a lower level for children to look at about travel. If a parent wants to read about history or art, similarly themed books for children are placed at their level. The connection between the books, the themes and the readers always touches my heart – particularly when I see a parent and a child enjoying looking at books together.
Recently when I go to a public library or a bookstore, I find myself always at the end walking through the children’s section. It is one of the best parts of my adventure into the world of books. I find books I read as a child or books that I read to my children years ago still being sold or being checked out by parents and children. I find new picture books that are fun to read and for one reason or another, they end up in my basket! I take them home, and just as I did when I was a child, I get excited as I open them up and explore the words, the ideas, the pictures and the dreams found throughout the pages.
This summer, I am going to read! I will read both for study and for pleasure. I will read to dream and to laugh. And in between reading the books, I hope to visit the libraries in my community as well as bookstores when I venture out. That will make this summer for me a fantastic one – one filled with ideas, hopes and dreams that will keep me motivated and excited until next summer! I hope that you will take time to go to a bookstore or two, or maybe even the library, and go on an adventure to find a great book that will fill your heart and mind with ideas, hopes and dreams!
Have a wonderful summer!
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.” (Mortimer Adler)
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