Drop everything?!?

In case you haven't heard, today is Drop Everything and Read Day, April 12 being the birthday of noted children's writer Beverly Cleary. I understand several local schools and libraries will observe this event tomorrow, April 13 — perhaps because it's too difficult to pull off an organized activity on the day children return from a weeklong vacation.

At 1:15 p.m. tomorrow, everyone in Fulton County is encouraged to drop whatever they are doing and pick up some reading material. I'm going out on a limb here to say people caring for infants and technicians at nuclear power plants are exempt from the "Drop Everything" clause. Perhaps they can arrange to have someone pop in a book-on-tape.

For the rest of us, this activity is intended to draw attention to the importance of reading as the main staple of a healthy intellectual diet: Presumably, young children and other impressionable types will see people reading and thus be inspired to dive into a good book, magazine or (ahem!) newspaper.

Several of us editors here in the L-H newsroom chuckled at the thought of "dropping everything" in order to read, since reading already is our principle occupation. When the clock strikes 1:15 p.m., should we drop the news stories, letters to the editor and chicken-supper briefs that are our standard fare and instead reach for something more substantial? As a card-carrying English major and literature junkie, I always keep some good brain food within reach.

So many choices ... Perhaps I'll read a few more pages of "A House for Mister Biswas," the novel by V.S. Naipaul that I have been plodding through for several weeks. A friend recently lent me several back issues of The Sun, a thoughtful politi-literary magazine that has captured the imagination of my inner radical flower child. With springtime I feel drawn to the writing of Hudson Valley naturalist John Burroughs.

Come to think of it, since April is National Poetry Month, I ought to spend a little quality time over at www.poets.org, the excellent site maintained by the Academy of American Poets. In my next few blog posts, I’ll have much more to say about poetry and local poets, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, happy reading.

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What are you dropping everything to read? Let me know at backerbauer@leaderherald.com.