{"id":3052,"date":"2010-04-12T12:17:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T16:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/?p=3052"},"modified":"2010-04-12T12:17:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T16:17:33","slug":"the-power-of-everyday-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/the-power-of-everyday-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Everyday Kindness"},"content":{"rendered":"

People who have stopped reading base their future decisions on what\u00a0they used to know. If you don\u2019t read much, you really don\u2019t know much.\u00a0You\u2019re dangerous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jim Trelease<\/em><\/div>\n

The other evening, I decided to run an errand after dinner and happened to be in the car when The Story<\/a>, one of my favorite NPR programs was on.<\/p>\n

The second guest was Jim Trelease<\/a>, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook.<\/em><\/strong> Although I knew about the book, I didn\u2019t know the story behind this multi-million seller. It\u2019s a story of passion aided by patience.<\/p>\n

Because Jim Trelease was read to as a kid, he made a point to recreate that same thing for his own kids. Then he began volunteering in his kids’ school and noticed that\u00a0the children who read the most on their own were those who were also read to by parents and teachers.<\/p>\n

He decided to fill a gap he’d uncovered and write a book for parents about how important reading aloud is. His family gave up their summer vacation and he self-published the first edition of \u00a0The Read-Aloud Handbook<\/em><\/strong> in 1979.<\/p>\n

“I self-published because I never thought any of the major publishers would be interested in it, ” he recalls. “At that point, ‘reading aloud’ was too simple and not painful enough to do the child any good.\u201d He managed to sell 20,000 copies of his little book.<\/p>\n

Eventually, his book was discovered by a fledgling literary agent who convinced him to expand it. Six publishers turned it down before it was picked up by Penguin. Trelease did a book tour and a respectable 50,000 copies were sold.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t long before sales began to plunge and he thought it was over.<\/p>\n

Then a stranger intervened. A librarian had written a letter to Dear Abby complaining about children\u2019s lack of interest\u00a0 in reading. A young mother saw the letter and wrote\u00a0an unsolicited book report of The Read-Aloud Handbook<\/em><\/strong> and sent it to Dear Abby.<\/p>\n

Dear Abby tracked down a copy of the book, shared the woman\u2019s letter in her column and sales skyrocketed almost immediately to 120,000 copies. (Incidentally, Trelease continues to send this woman flowers every year on the anniversary of that column.)<\/p>\n

He also paid for both of his kids\u2019 college educations.<\/p>\n

The first Penguin edition of the Handbook<\/strong><\/em> was followed by five more U.S. editions, along with British, Australian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese versions.<\/p>\n

It was the inspiration for PBS’s Storytime<\/em> series, and is now the all-time bestselling guide to children’s literature for parents and teachers\u2014nearly 2 million copies sold to date worldwide.<\/p>\n

The <\/strong>Handbook<\/strong><\/em> is now used as a text for future teachers at more than 60 colleges and universities. In addition, the Japanese edition introduced the concept of Sustained Silent Reading\u00a0 to public schools there and it became the basis for more than 3,000 elementary and secondary schools adopting SSR as a regular part of the academic day.<\/p>\n

The book’s success also created a platform for Trelease and he became a popular speaker on the value of reading aloud to children.<\/p>\n

Trelease\u2019s story inspires me because it\u2019s such a fine example of acting on an idea with no guarantee of outcome.<\/p>\n

But what\u00a0 I can\u2019t stop thnking about is how the kindness of a stranger opened the door to success and opportunities Trelease had never imagined.<\/p>\n

Don’t you wonder we might accomplish if we made public appreciation a regular activity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People who have stopped reading base their future decisions on what\u00a0they used to know. If you don\u2019t read much, you really don\u2019t know much.\u00a0You\u2019re dangerous. Jim Trelease The other evening, I decided to run an errand after dinner and happened to be in the car when The Story, one of my favorite NPR programs was…<\/p>\n

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