In the grade school I attended was a program called Junior Great Books. It was the earliest of book clubs when there wasn’t even a thing called book clubs, and my parents, more specifically my dad, thought this would be a good thing for me to join. Junior Great Books catered to Smartypants and High Achievers – two groups that up until that point I neither belonged to nor was included in. Ever. My dad signed up to be a group leader and so I had an *in* when I would have much preferred an *out*. Dad, however, knew I loved to read and I’m pretty certain that he hadn’t agreed to be a leader unless his daughter was part of the package.
In an era when Mom would dig in her purse and magically come up with a dusty Kleenex to bobby pin to the heads of her daughters to wear inside God’s house, the likes of Harry Potter or The Fault in Our Stars would be far into the future as the books of choice for middle-school readers.
No, Junior Great Books was about the classics and from day one this book club was a struggle for me. Like it or not, though, that is where I was once a month on a Thursday night with a few of my classmates beside me (none of whom were my friends) and my dad to discuss my skimmed over knowledge of a Junior Great Book. Added to this coming-of-age-anxiety-cocktail was a generous helping of a yet to be diagnosed speech impediment.
One month our book was Treasure Island – a book I found myself even more uninterested in than the others. Pirates, buried gold, a boy named Jim? This adventure story wasn’t even close to being in the dreams of my thirteen year old self. My dad started off the discussion questions and the usual extroverts jumped in with their thoughts and opinions, but after a few minutes Dad asked a question and said, “All of you put your hands down and let’s give Kathy and Betsy a chance to answer this one.”
Kathy and Betsy?
The silence was deafening as me and Betsy, with every pair of eyes in the room on us, kept our heads down and our mouths clamped shut for what seemed like an eternity. I don’t know about Betsy but the earth swallowing me up at that moment would have been a welcome sight.
“Nothing? Neither of you have anything you want to say,” Dad asked in the gentlest of ways and I couldn’t look up and I couldn’t open my mouth. I shook my head and tried not to cry and Betsy did the same and I knew then what it was like to disappoint your dad with a dozen other kids looking on.
In the front seat of our station wagon driving home in the dark Dad said, “I think you’re a smart girl and I know you love to read. What you think is just as important as anyone else at that table.” And for just a minute I thought that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t disappoint him as much as I thought.
It would be many years before my voice didn’t shake when I voiced an opinion in front of a group of people, but I kept reading and I kept thinking and what I will always remember from that night, besides my burning eyes and my red face and the stare of classmates whose names I can’t even recall save one, is the gift his words were to me.
One voice does matter. One voice can be the treasure that everyone is seeking.
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