The Sedins are on the same page
Family talks about love of books, with an assist from Raise-a-Reader
Long before Lisbeth Salander and her dragon tattoo, Daniel Sedin was reading crime stories and mysteries growing up in his native Sweden.
“My mom still sends me books written in Swedish,” the Canucks’ assistant captain and future hockey hall of famer said across the family’s kitchen table. “She brings them with her when she visits and she sends them by mail.”
The Sedins were a family of readers back in Ornskoldsvik. Father Tommy was a teacher and then school principal. Twin brother Henrik would pass a book on after he was done with it. Elder brother Peter was a page-turner.
“But (eldest brother) Stefan, he would go through books like no one else,” Daniel said. “Me, I’ll go through three or four books, then not read much for a few months.”
This summer, Daniel’s 12-yearold daughter Ronja read The Screaming Staircase, a thriller in the Lockwood & Co. series aimed at young adults. Erik, 9, likes any book about dinosaurs and Anna, 6, loves stories about animals or bugs.
Their mother Marinette reads across the spectrum.
“I’ll have three or four books on the go at one time,” she said.
Most of us take reading for granted. It also helps that English is practically ubiquitous around the globe. But imagine what it’s like moving to British Columbia having only ever read Sanskrit, Farsi, Marathi or Oromo. They’re written in scripts English speakers don’t even recognize as letters and the reverse is true of English for many immigrants and refugees arriving in the Lower Mainland.
Another class of citizen struggles with the written word: People living in poverty, in high-crime neighbourhoods, with addiction, with mental illness.
To help these communities with reading, The Vancouver Sun’s Raise-a-Reader program raises money for three beneficiaries, one of which is the Canucks for Kids Fund, which passes on all Raise-aReader donations to the Canucks Family Education Centre.
Vancouver and Burnaby school boards provide teachers, and classes are taught at Britannia Community Centre and Edmonds Community School.
About 600 people go through CFEC programs every year, ranging in age from toddler to grandparent. Bus tickets are provided and hot meals (about 500 a week are prepared) are free.
“Raise-a-Reader is great. It’s a wonderful campaign,” said Jean Rasmussen, founder and executive director of the CFEC. “I think it’s essential that campaigns like Raise-a-Reader exist.
“From the perspective of family literacy, it’s essential to the work we do. And it’s not just about the money coming in: It’s making the general public aware that there is this kind of need to support children and families with basic literacy, and it’s about creating those bonds between parents and children, and between the families and community.
“There is so little understanding of what the need is, to support children in their early years and to support adults who take care of these kids.”
Marinette Sedin is one of those who helps others to read through the CFEC. She has volunteered as a literacy teacher there for close to a decade.
“Marinette is a wonderful teacher,” said Rasmussen, who was the longtime executive director of Literacy B.C. before setting up the CFEC in 2002. “She has a deep sense of passion and empathy for the work.
“She is loved by her students. They walk away not only feeling like they’ve learned something, but they feel deeply respected.”
The job, if you want to call it that, is its own reward, Marinette said. She teaches mostly immigrant women.
“It feels like a meaningful thing to do and it makes me happy,” she said. “If I can help them, they in turn can help their children. It’s a family approach.
“And we practise how to talk to their doctor, how to ask the bus driver to stop for a stroller, how to communicate in the grocery store — the little things we take for granted, just everyday skills for different situations.
“When we plan our programs, we try to plan for what our participants need in their lives, things they need English for.”
Marinette’s famous husband and brother-in-law garner all the ink, but Rasmussen said Marinette is a unique force in her own right.
“She’s quiet, she’s humble and she creates miracles in this community,” Rasmussen said.
Anyone who wants to learn to read or improve their reading skills is welcome at the CFEC, Rasmussen said.
“There’s a huge need for financing because our services are all free,” she said. “We couldn’t provide them without our partners, like Raise-a-Reader.
“The success we have is because we have these long-term partners, partners who are in it for the long run with us. You can’t take the children and families we help on that long journey without those longterm commitments.
“At CFEC, in terms of Raise-aReader, it’s essential to the work we do.”