Something Bookish This Way Comes

Seventeen years ago I wrote a letter to Ray Bradbury.  Lo and behold, he wrote me back.  That fact, and the resulting epistle (which still hangs on my wall) will forever be a major "wow" moment in my life.

So tonight I wrote a little love letter back to him, the literary world's very own man in the moon--I know he's up there smiling behind those big black glasses over that cartoon-funny nose, probably exclaiming with the staccato, rapid-fire bursts of boyish zest that punctuated even his most mundane communication.

My current correspondence consisted of twenty exchanges with twenty folks I have never met wherein I handed them a copy of Bradbury's very own Fahrenheit 451.  It was theirs to keep and it was free.  All part of World Book Night US , a non-profit program that began in the United Kingdom and made its way across the big waters to our very own shore--a cultural exchange of the very best sort because it involves books, and the sharing of books.

It sounds simple, and it is--I can't even remember now how I found out about it.  Saw something somewhere and thought, "Hey.  I could do that...maybe."  Because not just any book would do.

When I clicked on the list of books chosen for the 2013 giveaway I knew I was in.  A chance to turn twenty unwitting souls onto this book, the one I read in a single day while I willingly neglected my five then quite small children--what better way to make a stand, no matter how small, against the very social ills Bradbury so sharply and, in some ways so accurately, foretold back in 1951?  

I wrote a short essay answer and clicked "send".  

The end result of that essay was this box of books.  

On any given day a box of books excites me.  A box full of Fahrenheit 451 is its own kind of incendiary device.  

I ripped open that box and took off.

First stop, dinner (a book giver has to have sustenance!).  The blonde young lady who so sweetly set my meal before me took the book I offered with the downturned shoulders and heavy sigh of one who has been handed a loathsome homework assignment--as she walked away I urged her to pass the book on to anyone who might be interested.  My daughter looked at me and stifled a laugh, asking her fiance', "Did you have to read that in high school?"  "I read it for fun," he replied.  I knew I liked that guy.

Time to hit the streets of Bowling Green with books in hand, and what better April night?  The sunset was more than fair, and the moon rose as big as the one on that bold yellow label.

Over the course of three hours I gave away 19 more copies of this book--a book that celebrates words, books, ideas, and the freedom required to access them.  

I gave a copy to three firefighters standing next to their engine in a parking lot.  When I told them it was about the anti-fireman, a man who starts fires to destroy instead of putting them out to save, they were intrigued.  

And then I began a campaign of drive-by, drive-through book drops, to a wide range of reactions.

There was Ross, in a barbecue joint I have never patronized (which, frankly, I can't believe is still in business given its routinely empty parking lot).  He was proud to take that book and even more proud to tell me his name.

There was Samuel, timid, pale and thin--he took the book, but only with the barest tips of his fingers.  If he reads a single page it might just singe the hair off of his pale round head.

Then there was Amron, who gave me the flat stare of the smug, disinterested, barely civil 17-year old.  "I'm sure somebody will find a use for it"--subliminal message reads "and it sure as heck isn't gonna be me."  Before I got out of the parking lot I saw a girl looking over his shoulder to see what had just come through that window.

Or Cresha, whose gap-toothed grin spread wide across her young face.  She grabbed that book with an excited, "I'll read it!!"

Then there was Brennon--I had barely begun describing the book before a girl in a visor squealed and said, "I read that book in high school!  It's a really good story--you will like it!"  She did my work for me.

Liquor stores have drive throughs--and interesting folks work there--people who were interested not only in what I was doing, but in the book.  There was one guy, Marc with a "c", who said he had read it three times in high school and then three more times, and could recite it page for page--tonight his daughter got her own copy to encounter for her own very first time.  

There was Amanda, handing out burritos at Taco Bell.  She had a question for me, "Is it a good story?"  After my description she chimed, "I'll read it!"

And DeWayne, whose eyes sparkled when he saw the cover.  He was a Bradbury fan--had read much of his work, but had yet to discover 451.  Best of all, he promised to pass it along to others when he was done, and I believe DeWayne will do just that.

While I sat in line waiting my turn to talk to the faces behind the window, I skimmed through the book and was caught yet again by Bradbury's vision of who and what we might become.  As our screens have grown ever larger, our attention spans ever shorter, our need for entertainment ever deeper, I am grateful.  To him for writing this book, to the World Book organizers for this program, and to every single hand that took this book from me tonight.  In a break room, in a storage closet, maybe in a car parked behind a fast food restaurant, new eyes will find these words and, perhaps for the first time, brains will question this world in which we live and why we live in it the way we do.

"There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there.  You don't stay for nothing."

                                                            Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451