by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
At the tender age of 6, Amaa Wijetunga of Sartell has read more books – way more books – than almost any adult on the planet.
Two-thousand books, to be exact. Yes, that’s correct: 2,000 books.
The first thousand or so were read to her by her mother, but the other thousand books she read mostly all by herself.
Amaa (pronounced Amah) is one of three daughters of Gayathri and Mevan Wijetunga. Mevan is a cardiologist with CentraCare, and Gayathri is a stay-at-home mom. The other daughters are Avanthi, 13; and Nivanthi, 11. All three daughters have always loved to read, but especially Amaa.
Mevan and Gayathri hail from Sri Lanka, the island country just off the southern tip of India. They came to the United States in 1999, first to Maryland and then to Sartell in 2006.
Gayathri, an extremely avid and active library supporter, is a member of the Sartell Friends of the Library, an organization that has long advocated for a branch library in the City of Sartell.
Growing up in Sri Lanka, Gayathri was painfully aware of the lack of libraries and the difficulty in gaining access to the ones that did exist. In America, she was determined her children would be able to make visits to a library, even if that meant driving to the St. Cloud Library where they could partake in Story Time and other fun-and-educational activities. Sometimes it was very difficult because she had to be sure to try to schedule her trips so there would be something for each of the daughters to do in their respective age groups on the same library-visitation day.
It was at the St. Cloud Public Library that Gayathri and Amaa, who was 4 at the time, learned about a Books for Kids reading-challenge program for which children could be honored for reading (or listening to others read to them) 1,000 books.
Amaa was thrilled at the prospect. She immediately began to pick and choose among the thousands of storybooks available for children. She would gleefully gather up armloads of books at a time, which her mother would check out for her.
Back home, mother and daughter would hunker down cozily in a big armchair, and Gayathri would begin to read with Amaa sitting beside her or on her lap, following each word as her mother pointed to the words she was reading. Amaa was completely enchanted by the stories her mother read and delighted by the illustrations in the storybooks. Every day, they would have their reading sessions, sometimes going through dozens of books every day.
Amaa said quite a few times, “Mommy, my brain is tired now, but I just have to listen to more stories.”
It took 106 days to go through 1,000 books. She finished her reading marathon April 30, 2016.
Her favorite stories involved nature or animals, and her favorite book, which made her laugh again and again, was Skeleton Hiccups, about a skeleton trying to drink water, among other goofy foibles.
After all of the watching of her mother reading, following each word, phrase and sentence as her mother pointed to the text, Amaa began to understand letters, letter combinations and the sounds they signified, to the point that she could read pretty much on her own.
That is when the second challenge began – another 1,000 books.
Amaa reads up a storm, then grabs a snack or some lunch, then she launches into another happy reading marathon, reading to her heart’s content.
As of Aug. 21, she had read 999 books, with just one more to go. The one she was reading Aug. 21 was entitled Where Do I Wear Water Wings?, an entertaining book that has fun with homophones – words that sound alike but have different meanings.
Amaa missed the age cut-off day for kindergarten only by a few days, a real disappointment. However, her mother decided to enroll her in a Montessori school where she was treated as a bona-fide kindergartner. In a couple of weeks, she will be a first-grader at Oak Ridge Elementary School.
“She is so ready for school,” her mother said. “She is begging for more knowledge.”
What impressed Gaya – what still impresses her – is how Amaa’s intensive reading has instilled so many good emotions and behaviors in her.
“It’s not just knowledge,” Gaya said. “It’s how to be nice to others. It’s how to share with others. Amaa has become so compassionate. One book she read was about a poor boy in India, and I would explain to her how so many people suffer in India, and she was so moved by that story. She cares so much about other things, too, like the environment.”
The Wijetungas are very proud of all of their reading daughters.
“They would come home from school, drop their backpacks and start reading,” Gaya said. “They are like their grandfather in Sri Lanka. He has passed on, but when we would visit here, he loved to read to the other children (before Amaa was born).”
Gaya is convinced the love of reading will continue well into the girls’ adult lives and then to the next generation and the next.
Bundled up in a cozy blanket, Amaa Wijetunga immerses herself in yet another exciting storybook. Her mother read to her 1,000 books. The second 1,000 books Amaa read all by herself.
