Margaret Mackey

Two words in Margaret Mackey's book title grabbed my attention: "reading" and "[b]ibliography." Because one: I am an insanely avid, lifelong, voracious reader; and two: I am one of those odd people who, if a book has a bibliography tacked on at the end, I will actually read it, in hopes of finding yet another book I might enjoy. The other thing that grabbed me was the implication, in the word "auto-bibliography," that this might be, at least in part, a memoir. (I love a good memoir.)

ONE CHILD READING: MY AUTO-BIBLIOGRAPHY, is actually something much more ambitious than a reader's memoir. It is in fact a rather scholarly study of reading and how we learn - with extensive notes and, of course, a bibliography. In it, Margaret Mackey looks closely at all the factors that shaped her life as a young reader. She explains her undertaking thusly -

"This project would be deceptive if it simply portrayed a literacy growing out of the interrelationships between a girl, her books, and her landscape . My literate life was also shaped by human decisions, committee meetings, fundraising activities, and hard physical, intellectual, and social labour, all expressed through particular institutions."

That said, 'landscape' was indeed important in Mackey's development and progress as a reader. Born in Nova Scotia, Mackey grew up in St. John's, Newfoundland, an isolated island city situated on the easternmost edge of North America. So there is much here about the history of St. John's and Newfoundland itself - how it became a part of Canada, and yet remained somehow separate, maintaining something of its 'otherness,' for many of the years of Mackey's youth. Her father, a WWII veteran, was the principal of the school Mackey and her three younger brothers attended, so it is perhaps not surprising that Margaret quickly became a 'bookish' sort of child. And this is the part of her story that kept me reading. Because, while I know that ONE CHILD READING is an important work of academic research about literacy, Newfoundland and the Canadian system of education, it was the books and the other forms of media - music, radio, and television - that most intrigued me, having been myself both a bookish kid and a child of the fifties, as Mackey was.

Mackey dwells at some length on the paucity of good reading material in the St. John's of her childhood, and how, when there was nothing else available, she turned to the newspapers and magazines that came into her own home. She remembers "Dick Tracy" in the Sunday funnies - "a must-read" - but says she never read the 'soap opera' comic strips like "Mary Worth" or "Rex Morgan, M.D." (I read them all.) She read "Joe Palooka", "Blondie" and Jiggs and Maggie in "Bringing Up Father." (Me too - all of 'em, as I said.) Her parents discouraged the reading of comic books, but she retains vivid and pleasurable memories of reading (on summer vacations in the homes of friends) Donald Duck, Superman, Archie, and Scrooge McDuck comics. I have my own childhood memories of spending rainy summer afternoons sprawled on the concrete floor of my neighbor's garage, reading and trading and discussing comics with my brothers and friends. Superman, in fact, prompted us all, one afternoon, to tie towels around our necks and, shouting loudly, "Up, up and AWAY!", we would leap off the roof of that same garage. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries.

The magazines her mother subscribed to - LADIES HOME JOURNAL, McCALL'S and READER'S DIGEST (as well as their Condensed Books) - populated our house too; and, like Mackey, I dipped into most of those magazines, including the regular "Can This Marriage Be Saved" feature of LHJ, which, Mackey suggests, contributed much to her education about marriage and the adult world in general. She also remembers the JACK AND JILL children's magazine, which our family also subscribed to. (We also got BOYS' LIFE and WALT DISNEY COMICS in the mail every month.) After graduating from the Honey Bunch, Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames series books (for me it was the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift), she loved the Gilbreth family tomes, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN and BELLS ON THEIR TOES, as well as Skinner's OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY. Check. Me too, Margaret. But she also loved the mysteries of Agatha Christie and Mary Roberts Rhinehart, which I never got into. At that age I was becoming more curious about other 'adult' offerings, like the just-published LOLITA, for example.

There is also a section here about 'family libraries' and 'hand-me-down' books, which immediately brought back Booth Tarkington's PENROD and PENROD AND SAM, discovered in my grandmother's glass-front bookcase; or the far-north novels of Owosso author James Oliver Curwood, and the westerns of Zane Grey, found in my other grandparents' house.

Mackey writes too of Christmas programs and seasonal music of the past - songs that became part of family tradition. She writes of early TV programs too, like CBC's KINDERGARTEN OF THE AIR, which brought back the sights and sounds of ROMPER ROOM and DING-DONG SCHOOL, watched with my younger siblings. And HOWDY DOODY and the Roy Rogers and Annie Oakley television series, which we both remember watching, Mackey in St. John's and I in Reed City.

I was especially touched by a comment made early on by Mackey about being back in St. John's researching this book, how -

"... no matter how interesting the files, I would be impelled to put down my notes and go outside to walk the old streets of my childhood once again ... On every return visit after leaving home for good in 1970, I have felt one overwhelming sensation about being back in the city: 'my feet are happy here.' ..."

Yes. I know that urge, and I know that "happy feet" feeling. Upon reading this comment, I thought back on the well-worn routes I walked as a child here in my home town, which I left for forty years, and then returned. Those familiar paths I walked throughout my youth - to school, to the library, to the movies, to church and other places. I am past seventy now, but I am walking those paths again, though many of the old destinations are no longer there. There is a hint of sadness in thinking of those long-gone places, but my feet? Well, they are still happy, maybe just to be still walking, period.

I know that ONE CHILD READING is meant to be more than just a walk down memory lane, and it is much more than that, most certainly. And yet, while I know that scholarship and literacy will be richer for the extensive and careful research represented here, I still want to thank Ms. Mackey for taking me on that walk. It was a pure pleasure. I will recommend this book highly, and not just for library collections, but for any child of the fifties who loves books and reading. Thank you, Margaret.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (más)