Nettie turned her eyes toward me. "Bookworm, are you?"
The way she said that word absolutely made my skin crawl. She made me sound like I was some spineless, mindless creature living on mold underground. I do love books, but there is nothing wormy about it. I would much prefer to be called a bat than a worm any day of the week.
Just that afternoon at the library storytime, Nancy had read a beautiful poem about a baby bat being born. It described the bats' "sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces." It told how they soared and looped through the night, how they listened by sending out what the poet called "shining needlepoints of sound." Bats live by hearing. I realized, standing in front of Nettie right then, that when I read I am like a bat soaring and swooping through the night, skimming across the treetops to find my way through the densest forest in the darkest night. I listen to the shining needlepoints of sound in every book I read. I am no bookworm. I am the bookbat.
The way she said that word absolutely made my skin crawl. She made me sound like I was some spineless, mindless creature living on mold underground. I do love books, but there is nothing wormy about it. I would much prefer to be called a bat than a worm any day of the week.
Just that afternoon at the library storytime, Nancy had read a beautiful poem about a baby bat being born. It described the bats' "sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces." It told how they soared and looped through the night, how they listened by sending out what the poet called "shining needlepoints of sound." Bats live by hearing. I realized, standing in front of Nettie right then, that when I read I am like a bat soaring and swooping through the night, skimming across the treetops to find my way through the densest forest in the darkest night. I listen to the shining needlepoints of sound in every book I read. I am no bookworm. I am the bookbat.
( Kathryn Lasky )
[ Memoirs of a Bookbat ]
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