Reading Frenzy Marks Last Summer Weekend

Ah, the last lazy days of summer.

Time for barbecuing. Beaching. And, as countless parents and young people can tell you, time to buzz around and stress out over those half-finished summer reading assignments.

Dyana Baldini joined the ever-unpopular Labor Day weekend rite--”this crunch,” as she put it--Saturday at the Santa Monica library.

Cradling a copy of “The Hobbit,” she scanned the shelves of the student reading section for another book her entering freshman class at Santa Monica High must complete by Tuesday. As she figured it, her 13-year-old daughter, back from a month of summer travel and now tied up in daily attendance at a synchronized swimming camp, had exactly one free day left before the start of school to polish off “Devil in a Blue Dress” and a written report.

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“She’s very worried. She’s a good student,” said Baldini. Though daughter Stacey completed two required books, she was just midway through a third when it had to be returned to the library before she left town. Summer being summer, one thing led to another. Now Mom, having promised to “help out,” was on her own in the hunt for a book in high late-summer demand. All checked out.

“It’s very busy right now. There are a lot of students who waited,” said librarian Marilyn Taniguchi, seated a short distance away, next to summer reading lists for all the local schools. At this stage, calls coming in from students indicate a keen interest in literary girth. “They are primarily interested in how many pages” the books have, she said. “They are looking for a great book . . . under 150 pages.”

Summer reading programs are being embraced by more schools as part of education reform efforts. Citing studies showing little improvement in reading scores nationwide, President Clinton on Saturday stressed the importance of literacy programs in his weekly radio address. At the start of summer, U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley came to Los Angeles to kick off a pilot summer reading program--designed to avoid what Riley called “the summer lag” in student literacy. “Reading and writing are skills that take constant practice,” he told parents and educators in June.

Of course, it is precisely the desire for a little “summer lag” on the part of students that contributes to the Labor Day logjam of reading and writing tasks.

“It’s educational, but it’s kind of not very fun,” said Melissa Jara, buried Saturday in the last 120 pages of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” She was waiting in line with her family outside a school supply store on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in East Los Angeles. “You get out for summer . . . then you have to do homework,” she groaned.

“Summer’s when we’re supposed to enjoy ourselves,” added sister Monica, looking up from her own novel, but not looking forward to a back-to-school test Tuesday on the book.

Actually, Melissa is an avid recreational reader. She completed dozens of books of her own choosing over the summer. But the combination of Twain’s use of unfamiliar Southern dialects, and only getting a new copy of the book several days ago--an earlier paperback became damaged and unreadable--has cast a cloud over the last sunny holiday of the season. Her report is due this week.

“I’m kind of stressed about it,” she said.