Raise-a-Reader: What Lexie and Thatcher Demko like to read — and why a story is part of their son's bedtime routine

Donations from generous Vancouver Sun and Province readers have resulted in over $23 million in funds for Raise-a-Reader beneficiaries since 1997. This year's campaign runs Sept. 20 to 27.

Published Sep 21, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Thatcher and Lexie Demko read to their one-year-old son Dawson. Photo by Allen Agco /Canucks Sports & Entertainment

When it comes to reading, Lexie Demko is the bookworm in the family.

“Thatcher does pick up a book here and there, but for the most part, the bookshelf is full of my books.”

The San Diego-born Thatcher has been a goalie for the Vancouver Canucks since 2018. The Canucks for Kids Fund is one of the beneficiaries of Raise-a-Reader donations. Funds from Raise-a-Reader support the Canucks Family Education Centre (CFEC), which operates in partnership with several community organizations to provide family literacy and early learning programming for children, youth and adults.

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These include the Get Ready 2 Read Family Resource Program, which is focused on family literacy.

“Participants are primarily new immigrant and refugee parents and their children under age five,” Jean Rasmussen, founder and executive director of CFEC, said in an email.

“The goals of the program are to build literacy and learning skills within the family setting and to strengthen the home-school-library connection. We provide an early learning program for the children, a parenting and support component for the parents, food, learning materials, and transportation at no cost to the family.”

Donations from generous Vancouver Sun and Province readers have resulted in over $23 million in funds for Raise-a-Reader beneficiaries since 1997. This year’s campaign runs Sept. 20 to 27.

Lexie Demko started reading avidly while attending the University of North Dakota.

“It started probably in my senior year of college, when my workload was a little less. I was about to graduate, so I had a little more free time to pick up a book.”

Among her selections in a July Instagram post were The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Reid Jenkins and The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.

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“I’m not too picky. I definitely love a good thriller and murder mystery. Historical fiction is really up my alley, like World War Two-era novels. I mix in a biography and memoir here and there.”

Despite her hockey background — the Troy, Mich., native played for the women’s team in university — she generally doesn’t read books about the sport although she made an exception for the Beartown series by Swedish writer Fredrik Backman. One of the books she had on the go recently was Think Like a Monk, by Jay Shetty.

She rarely recommends books to Thatcher.

“He probably wouldn’t really enjoy the ones that I do. There have been a couple that he’s tried to press on me. But the ones that he reads are about philosophy or psychology. I try to keep up with that stuff as best as I can, but it’s not really up my alley.”

The couple recently welcomed their first child, Dawson. They already have the one-year-old on a reading program.

“We read to him all the time. We’ve got about three or four books a day. He loves his bedtime routine with his nighttime story. His little reading routine has already started.”

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Asked about the importance of literacy she said: “In today’s day and age with all this media and easy technology, I think it’s more important to get a book in your hand than ever.”

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