Column: Learning Matters: Spending time with grandchildren can be priceless

Reading is a solitary experience for most adults. Book groups, university students and others will talk about books they’re reading. Cities, school faculties and corporate departments sometimes decide collectively to read a book. But reading itself is generally a solo endeavor.

Reading with young children, on the other hand, is a shared experience — an experience of time, space (a lap, a floor, a comfy chair), story and art.

But it’s the time shared with children that stood out as the common response when I queried my grandma friends about grandparenting and libraries (Glendale News- Press, July 8).

Not everyone had a library story to share, but each of my friends conveyed the special pleasure they and their grandchildren have taken in dedicated child time, a positive sort of time-out, removed from the more hectic pace of daily lives.

Two of my friends emailed about spending time with each grandchild individually.

Christa’s seven grandchildren are grown now, all in their 20s. Five of them live locally, and it’s not surprising Christa’s home is still the family hub.

“Looking back,” she wrote, “I feel that my most important contribution to that ‘village’ in which a new generation is raised among family and friends is availability… having one child at a time visit for special attention, playing ‘Memory’ while sitting or lying on the floor, and within a few years feeling the pain of being ever more badly beaten!”

With sleepovers for one or a whole family of grandchildren, each of Christa’s grandchildren had a favorite German lullaby, “and storytelling, always storytelling, especially those about ‘when Mommy was a little girl.’” Even carpooling to schools or appointments, Christa would “take advantage of individual time-out.”

Suzanne, with grandchildren spread across the country, shared how she and her husband have made an effort to see each of them on an informal schedule every year. The grandchildren “always stay in our hotel with us for a sleepover and we play games and watch movies…. They know we spend money on them for experiences rather than shopping for toys.” They prefer to keep their grandchildren “very busy making memories,” she wrote.

My friend Susan echoed the importance of spending time with children.

“I haven’t done much library-esque with my grandchildren,” she wrote, “but certainly the old-fashioned pastimes still work… especially in hot weather — a shallow wading pool, squirt guns and water games of any kind really.”

She went on to share her hope “that personal iPads and such don’t replace reading from books.” She sees a lot of small children with electronics, including her own grandchildren.

That pleasant pastime of reading from books was highlighted last Sunday at Once Upon a Time (reportedly the oldest children’s bookstore in the United States), where I attended the book launch for Glendale playwright and children’s author Jennifer Berry’s new book, “The Prayer Box.”

Last summer, I wrote about Berry’s “Act Out” performing arts camp at the Alex Theatre. Since then, she has been preparing this book for publication, a story inspired by her experience with her own children. For me, both the book and the book launch served as an illustration of my friends’ reflections.

The bookstore was filled with children, parents, grandparents and friends, some who’d grown up with Berry in Glendale and, like her, remember childhood trips to Once Upon a Time. Berry’s parents were there, along with her husband and twins. All of them had come for this special children’s book time.

“The Prayer Box” centers on a young girl’s interest in the contents of a special box where her mother keeps a collection of handwritten prayers. But the pages also tell a broader story of times the mother and daughter spent together: baking, watching a movie, walking, gardening and talking.

It’s a story about relationships planted and grown in shared experience.

Not every parent or grandparent has the resources or the time that some of my friends have been able to offer their families. But each of us can find some time to share, and libraries are free to all.

JOYLENE WAGNER is a past member of the Glendale Unified school board, from 2005 to 2013, and currently serves on the boards of Glendale Educational Foundation and other nonprofit organizations. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.