In the middle of our bed, my wife and I set our three-week-old down on his belly. We hadn’t yet moved into our new home that was being built, and so we were still living in our 450 square foot apartment. Jorden, my wife, had turned the top of our dresser into a baby station, and on the ends of each side she placed wicker baskets filled with diapers, wipes, cream for rashes, and so on, but also a few books and some soft rattly toys.
“Just grab one of the books” Jorden said, sitting next to Charlie. I grabbed Hello, My World, a high contrast book that helps visual development in newborns.
I read through the book, showing Charlie the pages and watching his tiny yet somehow large eyes open and close. I read the last line of the book, which goes, “Hello, My World,” and before I closed the book, I let that line linger for what I thought was just the right amount of time, and then, just then, right at the tippy top of that pause, there came the long, loud trumpet of a fart.
Laughter—what wonderful medicine it is.
The last time I was invited to write for The Millions and recap my year in reading, my world had been turned upside down by death. My mother had died that year in 2021, a pain that has not gone away and I know never will. And now here I am once more, invited to write about my year in reading, and my world has again been turned upside down, but this time by life.
Having a newborn, working, and writing made little time for reading the typical literature I do, but it was something I did and was able to get done. The months leading to Charlie’s birth—February 27, 2023—I read The Blue Jay’s Dance by Louise Erdrich, The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, We’re Pregnant! The First-Time Dad’s Pregnancy Handbook by Adrian Kulp, as well as a few more. When Charlie finally did arrive, Jorden and I had already planned to read as many books as we could to him. While I read the books I wanted to read when I could, most of the books I read came from one of the five storage bins full of children’s books, most of which we’ve gone through by now.
The editor at The Millions asked me to write this, and while I might have chosen different, the following books are not necessarily the ones I would have chosen to list here (no offense to those left out). Every night at 6pm, my wife and I take turns reading. First we have to start with board books, and then we end with pop up books, namely the DK Series. If Charlie could talk, he would say, “Make sure to tell them about the The Itsy Bitsy Bunny by Jeffrey Burton (Author) and Sanja Rescek (Illustrator), The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton, A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni, Little You by Richard Van Camp.” Here Charlie would pause and say kci-woliwoni, which is Penobscot for “Thank you,” to Richard for so kindly sending us his children’s books. Then Charlie would continue: “And don’t leave out Global Babies. I like looking at those babies. They’re beautiful like me.”
I won’t let him go on here, because we’re moving into DK’s Pop-Up Peekaboo! series, and if you get him started on those, he won’t quit. I know he’d want me to list every single one he likes—which is the entire collection—and explain the intricate details of each story, but I’ll spare you that and point you directly to Pop-Up Peekaboo Space, where Daisy and Danny are blasted to the moon and leave behind a message to other life forms.
While we read so many books to Charlie that we wouldn’t have read—or at least I wouldn’t have read, since Jorden is a pre-k teacher—I also read some powerful literature from debut authors that made this year of life glow. Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham was a powerful and transcendental novel, and I hung on every word. Holding Pattern by Jenny Xie carried so much power—I watched her characters learn to belong as my own family grew by one. Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour had me cracking up, both my heart and my gut with laughter.
While I read other novels throughout the year, specifically forthcoming titles that I’m excited to see hit shelves soon, like the wonderful Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, I found myself really reading story collections. It was easier, in a way, to be able to sit down and read one story and not have to worry about losing my place should I get sidetracked by taking care of Charlie. And so I devoured what I could. I read Attention Seekers by Emma Brankin—the stories are crafted with so much care and humility. Another set of stories that I could not put down was Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine—like Emma’s collection, Ghassan too crafts stories that are unforgettable. I still cannot get the characters out of my head. In fact, the book is still in my to be read pile, like I need to go back to it, which I will. And then, finally, there was The Sorrow of Others by Ada Zhang. The stories in this book hit me hard. Each one had me thinking a lot about what it means to be there, and what it means not to be there. In a way, this collection spoke to me about life and death—mom gone, Charlie here. That circle.
I suppose, then, I should say no more—this was my year in reading, yes, but this was my year in living.
More from A Year in Reading 2023
A Year in Reading Archives: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
