At Tweetspeak, books matter. We host a book club, we review books, and we publish them at TS Poetry Press. We’re dedicated to literacy — for life. And we want to learn from each other about reading in the wild.
Do you want to be a wild reader? Are you reading wildly already? We’re using Donalyn Miller’s Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer’s Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits to explorewhat it means to be a wild reader, someone most likely to embrace literacy for life. Read through these 5 characteristics and see which ones fit your reading style and which you might incorporate this month. And please let us know what you’re reading. We need each other’s suggestions!
5 Main Characteristics of Wild Readers
1. They dedicate time to read.
This month has been a busy writing month, filled with interviewing. My reading brainpower felt diminished, so I’ve been reading at meals, especially at lunch and my afternoon snack. It’s a better use of that half-hour than scrolling through social media.
How do you change your reading when your brain is fried?
2. They self-select reading material.
A couple of reading selections came from Twitter. (Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.)
May would have been Gwendolyn Brooks’ 100th birthday. In celebration, Poetry Foundation has been doing lots of fun things to honor her, including this video inspired by her poem We Real Cool. I learned about the celebration through a tweet to this piece called Chasing Ms. Brooks, by Randall Horton. That led me to rediscover the poetry section of my local library, where I found The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Elizabeth Alexander.
I’d like to share one other Twitter find, a profile of Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali by GQ magazine. A good profile is difficult to write because it needs to feel like it could only have been written at this particular moment, which then makes it timeless. A really good profile also has a sliver of the writer, to show that there are two humans conversing. Kudos to you, Carvell Wallace, for a job well done. Also, speaking as someone who has edited many a fashion shoot, the clothes are fabulous.
P.S. Just in case you’re wondering, my vote for the best profile ever goes to Gay Talese for his 1966 piece on Frank Sinatra.
3. They share books and reading with other readers.
Once again, I borrowed a book from a family member, Johnny Cash’s Forever Words. Cash is the only person ever to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. If those accolades don’t convince you the man could write, then read the introduction by the book’s editor, Paul Muldoon. He called Cash a “psalm-singing preacher.”
Also, I mentioned last month that I was having lunch with a friend who always has good book recommendations. She was appalled that I’d never read any of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries. My library only had one collection, Father Brown and the Church of Rome, so that’s the one I checked out. I am better for having read sentences like this one: “He could only be compared to a tidy whirlwind.”
4. They have reading plans.
Last month I mentioned using awards to choose a book. So when I saw on Twitter that Rick Riordan had won the Stonewall Award for Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Hammer of Thor, I downloaded it.
I first read Riordan’s Percy Jackson series years ago, when my kids were into them, and I’d forgotten how funny Riordan is. Like when the hero of this book, Magnus Chase, defines the slang word “chillaxing” this way: “(which is like chilling, except with battle axes).” Since I just finished Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology last month, I’m up on my Norse myths. It’s genius of Riordan to create a gender fluid character who is the child of Loki, shape shifter extraordinaire.
About a year ago I read my first Stonewall-winner, Benjamin Aliere Sáenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. (Actually, I let Lin-Manuel Miranda read it to me on Audible over several bike rides.) That’s how I knew I wanted to read another book that had won the award.
Are there awards you take into account when choosing a book?
5. They show preferences.
On Wednesday, June 28, I awoke to the news that Michael Bond, creator of Paddington Bear, had passed away the day before. The theme for my son’s nursery was Paddington. So after reading several tributes, I went to the library, grabbed all the Paddington books, and sat down in a high-backed chair to read and take notes, while little kids read aloud and stacked pillows into towers and sandwiches. I planned to only write a little bit, but I ended up writing a lot.
Do the words you read ever spark you to create more words?
June’s Pages
Finished
Adult 
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Elizabeth Alexander
Forever Words: The Unknown Poems, Johnny Cash, edited by Paul Muldoon
Father Brown of the Church of Rome, G.K. Chesterton
Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other?, Dr. Peter Kreeft
A Collection of Poems, Lorraine McPherson (My great-aunt. Her daughter put together this collection and gave me a copy.)
The Turquoise Table, Kristin Schell (A note: Kristin is a friend, and I’ve been to her turquoise table for a book signing for another friend.)
Early Readers and Picture Books 
Paddington Bear and the Christmas Surprise, Paddington’s 1-2-3, Paddington’s A-B-C, Paddington’s Opposites, Paddington’s Colors, Michael Bond
Miss Rumphius, Barbara Cooney
Martina, the Beautiful Cockroach, Carmen Agra Deedy
The Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, Pet Show!, Hi, Cat!, Goggles!, Apt. 3, Ezra Jack Keats
Upper Elementary to Middle Grade
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Hammer of Thor, Rick Riordan
Sliced (1/4 to 1/2 Only: Got What I Needed and Moved On or Plan to Finish Someday)
None this month.
Started (The Jury is Still Out. Will I Finish?)
Teacraft, Charles and Violet Schafer (a gift from a friend, can’t bear to give up on it yet)
Abandoned (Not My Cup of Tea, It Bogged Down Quickly, or Others Beckoned)
None this month.
Your turn
Share anything about you and the 5 main wild reader characteristics. How do you display them, or wish you did, or plan to in the future?
Share your June pages. Finished, sliced, started, and abandoned are all fair game.
Photo by Maggie Brauer, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry.
Browse Reading in the Wild
__________
“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro
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Glynn says
June reading for me:
The Missing File by D.A. Mishani (mystery)
Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien (poetry and prose)
The Walk Home by Rachel Seiffert (literary fiction)
The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (mystery)
Conversion by Michael Lawrence (religion)
The Inheritance and The Cottage, both by Michael Phillips (fiction)
At Home in This Life by Jerusalem Jackson Greer (religion)
Don Camillio and His Flock by Giovanni Guareschi (fiction)
The Poems of Hafez, translated by Reza Ordoubadian (poetry)
Bedford Park by Bryan Appleyard (fiction)
Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poetry)
Flee, Be Silent, and Pray by Ed Cyzewski (religion)
Tainted by Suspicion by Fred Lucas (non-fiction)
Pineapple by Joe Taylor (a novel in rhyming verse) (poetry/fiction)
Does Prayer Change Things? by R.C. Sproul (religion)
Megan Willome says
Glynn, thanks for posting your list! I’m interested to know how you choose books that are religious in nature—what’s your criteria or selection process?
L.L. Barkat says
I just love how you read, Megan. Eclectic, for sure. 🙂
Also, I almost always learn something about writing or being an editor, when I read your work. Today: what makes a good profile.
My June reading was slim:
• started a re-read of Spin: Taking Your Creativity to the Nth Degree
• a passel of buffalo picture books (some really beautiful ones and a very funny one called Buffalo Wings that I thought you and Donna would find amusing)
• Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. (I cried! And laughed. 🙂 )
• started Spice and American Cake
Megan Willome says
My work definitely influences my reading. And once a year I write a 10,000-word profile, so it’s an area of interest for sure.
I think “The Graveyard Book” is the first one of Gaiman’s I ever read, and I chose it because it won the Newbery.
L.L. Barkat says
How did you like it?
Megan Willome says
Well, it got me reading him! I loved how everything came together the end, almost like a mystery.
I think he does such a masterful job of building tension. Probably my favorite short story of his is “Click Clack the Rattlebag,” read here for the New York Public Library.
Bethany R. says
What a colorful post, I enjoyed reading it, Megan. I’m glad you mentioned G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown books because it reminded me of the unread one on my own bookshelf. Love that line you shared.
Megan Willome says
You’ll have to tell me what you think, Bethany. The stories in this collection were different from the mysteries I’m used to because each one is a short story rather than a novel. So, as with poetry, Chesterton has to do more with less.
Debbie Crawford says
My June reading of which some have continued into this month:
The Joy of Poetry by Megan Willome 🙂 Loved! Will read again and again!
Take Me with You by Catherine Ryan Hyde-still reading it. Picked it up at the Little Free Library in Pinedale, Wyoming. I don’t read much fiction but I am enjoying this book.
Adorned by Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wogelmuth-still reading. Been moving slow on this one.
The Weather of the Heart by Madeleine L’Engle-One of her books of poetry. Very good!
Megan Willome says
Aw, thank you, Debbie.
And I’m intrigued by that Madeleine L’Engle poetry collection. It’s one I haven’t read. Thanks for the tip!