Mary Graham Bonner

A Bookworm

Summary


"A Bookworm" by Mary Graham Bonner is a playful, witty short poem built around a delightful misunderstanding. Two bookworms chat about what it really means to earn the name — and the first worm makes a charming case: he has tunnelled through an entire shelf of books, every one in perfect order, imagining they might be hung from the ceiling like a garland. He loves books deeply, just not the words inside them. The gap between his pride and the human meaning of "bookworm" gives the piece its gentle, absurdist charm.

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Two bookworms were having a conversation.

“I tried cork-biting once,” said the first.

Two cheerful bookworms chat beside a shelf of colourful books in an illustration for A Bookworm

“And yet people call you a bookworm,” said the second. “Some people, anyway — the ones who don’t know much about it.”

“I don’t mind the name,” said the first. “I love books. I simply don’t care for reading. Which might sound strange, I know — but the bookworm families understand completely. Being a bookworm has nothing to do with words.

“Once, I worked my way through a whole shelf — every book in order, in exactly the same spot — so that if anyone had liked, they could have threaded a ribbon right through the whole row and hung them from the ceiling instead of standing them on the shelf. I thought they might enjoy the change. That seems to me to deserve the name.”

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Credits

Mary Graham Bonner was an American author active in the early twentieth century, best known for her imaginative children's poetry and short prose pieces. "A Bookworm" showcases her gift for gentle absurdist humour, letting an unlikely narrator redefine a familiar label entirely on his own terms.