Daren Gislason can be found reading on his roof. Daren Gislason, once back inside his home, continues to read as much as he possibly can.

Man reading on his roof

Anyone arriving in Minneota and asking for directions to Daren Gislason’s house will likely not be told the number of the house he lives in. Rather, they will be told the street he lives on and then to “look for a man reading on his roof”.

Gislason’s life has been built around opening a book; from learning to read at an early age, to teaching a reading program in Minneota for many years, to the present time where he spends the majority of his time reading books and magazines.

Gislason, 88, takes out a white sheet of paper with the names of the books and magazines he read each month neatly printed in chronological order.

The numbers are staggering — 204 books that totaled 53,031 pages and 160 magazines that totaled 12,065 pages. These are not the total books and magazines in his lifetime; this was just his total for 2018.

“I don’t have my garden anymore and I don’t trust my driving anymore,” he explained.

“And I don’t watch TV. So what else is left but to read?” Gislason lives in a bright yellow house on East Lyon Street.

Often, on a sunny day, he can be seen sitting on a chair on his “roof” (which is actually a second level landing) with a book opened in front of him. His two cats are usually outside on the landing with him.

“I don’t wave to the people going by in cars anymore,” he said. “People used to always drive by and wave, and I would wave back.” He then demonstrated why many people don’t wave anymore by pantomiming someone texting on a phone.

“That’s all they seem to do anymore,” he said. “It’s kind of sad, but true.”

Gislason grew up on a farm northeast of Minneota. He was able to read when he was five years old; an age when most other kids at that time weren’t yet able to.

“I started out with ‘See Dick’,” he laughed. “Then I turned the page and it was ‘See Dick Run’. Then Jane came along; and then Spot. That’s how I learned to read. I still have those books, too. I don’t throw anything away.”

The infamous Dick and Jane books are hardly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Daren’s collection of books. Every room in his house is filled with books of all kinds on shelves, tables and window sills. “I like non-fiction the best,” he said.

“But I read all kinds of books.”

And what is his favorite book and/or favorite author? “I don’t have a favorite,” he says politely.

“There are too many good books out there to pick just one. It depends on what I feel like reading on a particular day. I like Bill Holm’s books, or I might just feel like easy reading like Louis L’amour where I could read three of his books in one day.”

Gislason has an abundance of Icelandic books he has accumulated over the years to reflect his heritage. But he also read just about any book you can name; the Laura Ingalls Wilder collection, the Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings, biographies and autobiographies, fiction, non-fiction, historical and much more.

He then swings opens the doors of a large cabinet, revealing hundreds of National Geographic magazines.

After graduating from Minneota High School, Gislason left the farm and enrolled at the University of Minnesota; majoring in horticulture. After that, he decided to obtain his teaching license, which at that time only took one year.

He then taught fourth grade in Wood Lake for four years, and was then a sixth-grade teacher in Marshall for six years.

“I left Marshall in 1963 and got a job teaching at the University of Minnesota,” he said. “It was an experimental College of Education Elementary School program for kindergarten through sixth grade.”

There were 25 students in each class there; while the purpose of the program was to enable the U of M to teach their teachers. Gislason taught fourth grade there for one year and then sixth grade for two years.

“They figured out a way to get rid of me by closing the school,” he joked. So, in 1966, Gislason returned to his parents’ farm in Minneota. “I wasn’t necessarily looking for a job,” he said. “I was just helping out on the farm.”

Around that same time, it became abundantly clear to Minneota school administrators that their students were sorely lacking in reading skills. So they came up with the idea to initiate a “Right to Read” program.

“Eunice Frakes, who was a first grade teacher and served as the elementary principal, heard that I was back home living on the farm,” Gislason stated.

“So she came out and talked to my mom and asked her what my plans were.” Without even confiding with Gislason, the school hired him to head up its reading program.

“Ralph Larson, who was the superintendent, asked me to come in and talk to him,” Gislason recalls. “He basically just told me I had been hired for the job.”

Gislason’s explanation for accepting the position without even being asked was simple: “I’m a good old boy and I do what I’m told,” he laughed. It was a perfect match, however, as Gislason stayed on for 30 years until retiring in 1996.

“When I first started, the students were testing way below their grade level,” Gislason remembers.

“The girls were much better readers than the boys. The boys hated reading.”

With Gislason’s help, the Minneota elementary students were soon achieving much better results with their reading skills. “By the next spring, the sixth graders blew the tops off the tests,” Gislason said.

“Many of them were scoring well into the junior high level. There were some students that still didn’t test well; most of those were boys. But overall, the test scores were so much better.”

Reading and gardening has defined Gislason’s life. Gislason gives a tour of some of his reading spots throughout his home. It includes every room where a comfortable chair is generally positioned in front of a window.

“Wherever the sun is shining, that’s where I like to sit and read,” he explained. And one of his favorite places to read was at his five-acre garden north of town where his horticulture skills shined as brightly as the sun that nourished his plants.

“There are a number of places out there that I used to just sit and read,” he said. “But I gave up the garden in June of 2017. I just don’t have the energy that I used to.” But he didn’t entirely give up growing plants. His house is adorned with potted plants of all kinds.

Never married, Gislason’s children are the many students he has taught over the years. Six years ago, 19 of the students he taught at the University of Minnesota had a reunion at a resort near Green Valley.

They then toured the Big Store, where Gislason is the curator of the unofficial historical museum upstairs in the former Opera Hall. While at the Big Store, the group ate together in a special way.

“They had made paper-sack lunches just like they used to have when they were in school,” Gislason said.

“It was so much fun.”

Almost as much fun as pulling open the cover of a book he has not yet read.

Contact Us

The Minneota Mascot
Address: 201 N. Jefferson
Minneota, MN 56264

Phone:(507) 872-6492