Reading and Resilience

The Demmon family moved once again this summer, from northern Virginia to southern Missouri. For my daughter, who is about to become a teenager (what?!), it is her eighth house and her sixth new state. Such is the life of a military kid. It’s never easy to say goodbye to friends and step into an unknown community, but she’s doing just that with grace and strength…and some help from her favorite books.

She is an avid reader, that one. I can’t keep track of how many books she reads, or how many times she rereads the ones she loves. (Just take a look at those well-worn spines.) Reading gave her a lifeline throughout the toughest parts of the move. Virginia couldn’t fit into our moving boxes, of course, but all of the Lost Cities could. She had to wait all summer to walk the hallways of her new middle school, but she could wander through Hogwarts for hours on end (which she definitely did). Once we arrived, we made quick work of visiting our local library (always one of the first stops we make in a new town) and she and I discovered some new finds together.

It’s not just with her nose in a book that she has weathered this change, though. When my daughter connects with her friends across the country, half the time they are discussing their favorite characters or creating new fanfiction storylines from settings they both love. (And this girl can write, if I do say so myself!) The only thing better than a favorite book is sharing it with a friend, and that has given her a way to keep those ties strong across the country.

That daunting task of making new friends? Her literary life has served her there, too. Right off the bat there’s a way to connect with someone new: talk about books you already both love and introduce new ones to each other. I knew it was the beginning of something beautiful when my girl came home from a neighbor’s house with a stack of books lent to her by their daughters. Let the book exchanges (and new friendships) begin!

Leaving a home and starting all over in a new community can be really hard. Books can help. Have they helped you through a major life transition?