The Big Fresh December 27, 2014 Happiness of Pursuit

When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.

                                                 Amelia Earhart

The quests can often involve travel. My two sisters are on a quest to bike in each of the 50 states together. Guillebeau writes movingly of a woman with a terminal cancer diagnosis who set out to view more species of birds across the world than anyone had ever seen. But a quest doesn’t have to take you far from home — one of the questers in Guillebeau’s book set out to cook an authentic meal from every cuisine in the world, all within the confines of her suburban Colorado home.

The book reminded me that kids aren’t only natural-born questioners — they also love quests. Childhood reading provides a kind of scaffold for the bigger quests children might face down the road. All around us there are children who are right now memorizing dozens of stats for their favorite baseball or hockey team. When I was nine, I fulfilled my quest of reading a whole wall of children’s books about the presidents at the town library (just because it was there I guess).

Maybe we shouldn’t be too concerned when a child is on a quest to read every book in a series (even when there are 47 of them), or a book that is far over their reading level because it is a favorite of friends. A quest isn’t just an item on a bucket list — it’s something that requires planning, sacrifice, and often a bit of risk.  And aren’t those all elements of reading beyond your comfort zone, with goals or texts that are a little bit daunting?

I am not on a quest at the moment, but I want to find one. I’m using the questions Guillebeau provides as a starting point for finding one:

What excites you?

What bothers you?

If you could do anything at all without regard to time or money, what would it be?

I am taking my time finding a quest — or maybe I’m letting one find me.

Brenda Power

Founder, Choice Literacy