He is also forbidden to read aloud to students, a development that leaves him drained and unhappy. The last chapter, which is among the most fascinating in the book, is about her father’s battle with his school district to keep his library stocked with books, which the district removed entirely. If the book misses its mark, which it does, it’s because Ozma fails to focus enough on the reality of her father’s life.

But as a record of love between a father and daughter - and a story about the importance of rituals in family life - Ozma’s debut is touching. Brozina is the only stable figure in Ozma’s world.Īs memoirs go, the book is uneven, clearly written by a young woman still searching for her voice and somewhat afraid to probe the dark, unattractive corners of experience that make memoirs truly memorable. Ozma’s mother had a series of affairs before attempting suicide and abruptly leaving her father her sister, Kath, studied abroad, remaining physically and emotionally distant for most of Ozma’s young adulthood and money was scarce. Their determination can be attributed to the fact that family life was not easy. So they stuck with it until it became a sacred pact. The bond of the ritual - the way it defined their days and nights, brought them together and helped them examine their lives - meant too much to them to give up.

After those days were over, they simply didn’t want to stop. Brozina promised to read to Ozma every night for 100 days. It started on a train when she was little. In a sense, “The Reading Promise” is Ozma’s explanation to herself - and the rest of the world - about just why she and her father, an elementary school librarian, kept it up. This significant, deeply odd, sometimes-embarrassing, often-inspiring accomplishment is chronicled by 23-year-old Ozma in a new memoir, “The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared.” “The Streak,” as Ozma and her father, Jim Brozina, called it, began when Ozma was in fourth grade and didn’t stop until the day she moved into her college dormitory when she was 18 years old. Alice Ozma’s father read to her every night before bed for 3,218 days straight.

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma