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Arts & Entertainment

Author Discusses 'Reading Promise' During Book Signing

Kristen Alice Ozma Brozina said the time spent with her father reading created a special bond between them.

Many parents read to their children at night and some may miss a night or two but not so with Alice and her father Jim Brozina. They did not miss a night, not one from the time Alice was 9 years old and in the fourth grade until the day she entered college. In case you were wondering, that’s 3,218 nights. They called it “The Streak.”

And their special bond, or streak, made such a big impression on her that she wrote a book about it, called The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared.

Her legal name is Kristen Alice Ozma Brozina, but she prefers the middle two names, both based on literary characters, Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Ozma from Ozma of Oz, the third book in The Wizard of Oz series.

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As a young girl, Ozma’s father promised to read to her for at least 10 minutes or more each night for 100 consecutive nights. One hundred became 1,000 and then they wanted to see just how long they could keep it up.

They started in November of 1997 with The Wizard of Oz and some 400 books later, “The Streak” ended as it began with The Wizard of Oz in September of  2006 when she left for college.

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Ozma held a book signing at the Sunday afternoon and read the first chapter of her debut book, The Reading Promise, aloud. She was charming, witty, articulate and engaging. She spoke to the group of about 30 people who seemed to hang on every word.

She spoke of the time when she and her dad had to settle for reading over the phone and the time when he read to her in her prom gown just before she left for the dance. And about her then boyfriend rushed her home so that she would not miss a night of “The Streak.”

She also said that as a child, her dad would bring home boxes of books and leave them outside her bedroom door and she believed that the “book fairy” had left them. It was not until years later she learned that her dad was indeed the “book fairy.”

Night after night Ozma would lie next to her father, an elementary school librarian in New Jersey, as he read to her, creating not just a love of reading but a bond that would carry them through hard times as her mother divorced her father a year after “The Streak” began.

While she claims not to have a favorite book, they read everything from Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss.

“Dickens is one of my favorite authors” say Ozma, along with Shakespeare, “his work is so poetic.”

Ozma, 23, is a recent graduate of Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., where she majored in English and minored in theater.

When asked how the book came to be, Ozma says she had an assignment in college and wrote about “the Streak.” And it was published in The New York Times. After the story ran, Alice was contacted by more that 14 literary agents before signing with Grand Central Publishing last year because she said, “it felt right to me. Jen, my agent, was concerned about me, not just the money.”

The Reading Promise hit the shelves in bookstores last month and promises to be a best seller.

“And there is even talk of movie rights,” says Ozma.

She hopes the book is a success and that is encourages more parents to read to their children and for children to read. When kids tells her that they do not like to read, she suggests they haven't yet found the right book.

Michelle Mooney, a Havertown resident and a second grade teacher in the Upper Darby School District, attended the reading with her daughters, 10-year-old Grace and 5-year-old Sara. Mooney says after hearing Ozma speak, she wants to start a “streak” in her school.

Ozma is enjoying the success but is realistic and is also looking for a job, maybe as a teacher.  In fact, she told The Haverford-Havertown Patch that she recently applied for a position at but did not get the job.  

But at the moment Ozma is debating about writing another book.

“I’m on the fence about it,” she says, “ I really liked meeting all the people and traveling to promote the book but I would like to have a different writing process next time. There is a lot more to it than I thought.”

Ozma said that her father is proud of her and is now retired, but his love of reading to people has not ended. He volunteers his time reading to children and older adults.

Ozma, who now lives in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, is traveling to promote her first book and doing television appearances. Her next book signing is Tuesday, July 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Free Library of Philadelphia

To read more about Ozma and The Reading Promise, go to her website at www.readingpromise.com.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article mislabeled the title of the author's agent and incorrectly stated the number of books read. It has been updated.

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