Why I Read: Stern Center Instructor, Shaun Stephens

By Shaun Stephens

My reasons for reading are as varied as the things that I read. I read to learn; I also read not to learn. I read to escape; I read not to escape. A favorite reading material for me is the “how-to” book or article: how to replace a toilet valve assembly, wire a 3-pole outlet, build a treehouse, make a woodcut, throw a boomerang. Most recently, I wanted my apple tree to produce more apples, so I have looked up how to control apple scab, codling moths, watercore, flyspeck, and sooty blotch. Who knew there were so many afflictions on apple trees? There is so much out there to discover. Stargazing, tree identification, orienteering, building a duct-tape wallet: the sky’s the limit! I have to try to corral my sometimes wandering attention.

But I also read not to learn; I want to lose myself in a good story. The latest adult fiction I read was The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I loved the combination of magical realism, supernatural elements, historical fiction, and suspense. Run by Ann Patchett was an improbable but fascinating story of families intersecting in the wake of a car accident. The author made the girl protagonist so real I felt I had known her for years. I did not learn any specific things in these stories. I just experienced the pull and the joy of a good story.

I do like to escape from day-to-day work and routines into something that is just pure fun: comedy by P.G. Wodehouse or Dave Barry, or I read with my kids from their books. When they were younger, it was Peter in Blueberry Land, Pippi Longstocking, the Mercy Watson books. Now it is The Golden Compass, Black Duck, Divergent. Great kids’ books have propulsive and intricate plots, humor, devious antagonists, difficult choices, bad things happening to good people, and lots of opportunities to infer what is going to happen and explain how things work. It’s like they make parenting easy for you because they raise all the important issues.

Since I feel privileged to live in this marvelous and uncertain world, I also like not to escape. I like to read books that challenge my understanding of why people treat each other as they do: The Journey of Crazy Horse, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, The Mayflower. It is often harsh and difficult nonfiction that paints an unflattering picture of human behavior and challenges my sometimes naïve assumptions about who we are and why we do what we do.

I am not a fast reader. My wife will get through three books in the time it takes me to read one. Sometimes I feel a kinship with Moses because it was he who complained to God “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” God, of course, told Moses “tough bananas” (I’m paraphrasing). So I also keep toiling along at my slow pace and take pleasure in reading deeply, if not quickly. I think it makes me appreciate what I have read even more, since it took a fair chunk of time to get through it.

All in all, I read to do new things, to feel competent, to experience the world, to make something beautiful, and to understand a little more of this exquisite world and its people and creatures.

Shaun Stephens provides speech and language services addressing social cognition, fluency (stuttering), motor speech, language, and alternative and augmentation communication (AAC) to learners of all ages. He received his MS degree from UVM in 2004. He has a special interest in language impairments, AAC, and complex communication needs, fluency, and social language, and he is engaged in research in narrative language faculties. He enjoys fiddling, biking, running, wood-working, and cross-country skiing.