Tell us Yourstory. Your story about libraries, reading, books, about book love.
Do you remember the first book you read? Do you love the smell of books? Can you remember sitting in a lap and being read to?
Tell us Yourstory, post in the comments below:*yes, we know it is misspelled, we're being... creative.
When I got my first issue of Cricket Magazine in the mail (1976-ish), my Mom had to explain to me that just because I had a magazine, it didn't mean I could READ it... I remember it like it was yesterday, I was devastated, but determined to learn to READ. Thankfully today, I can read and I still have all those Cricket mags, thanks to my Mom!!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, you ask so many great questions, I feel a faucet-runneth-over with answers... each a story nugget. For now, I will start at the beginning & say with total confidence that I 'love to read' because my mom read to me all of the time when I was merely a pea pod. In tribute to her burgeoning motherhood, I am grateful for that early introduction to the fantasy realm of creative writing and story land... I would not be the reader, writer, thinker I am today without that foundation.
ReplyDeleteThe first pre-adolescent book I remember reading was the Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My mom “went to heaven” when I was a young girl, so this book had special meaning for me. The story brimmed with emotions, delved into values and ideals, and introduced me to a tale with magic and goodness. This story will forever be my favorite! I am a slow reader, but have always enjoyed the gift of reading and the wonders & worlds of learning it provides.
ReplyDeleteI’m part Max Brill. Actually, I’m part everybody and everybook. I think of book is a kind of condensation of the author’s quiddity, their essence. I think that when they publish, they give us that great gift of themselves, and we have the opportunity to take them in, to become essentially better, deeper, wiser, more human. As a child, I found Hardy Boys books gave me summers more exciting than my own. As a young father, I found The Little House books affected our own little house, made us a closer family. As a man beyond childrearing I found books invited me to become the self of which I’d though myself incapable, and they have never stopped calling me farther and deeper, finding more to seek. And they lead me all the more to see human faces, covers behind which are pages and pages to turn, to be invited to the heart of things.
ReplyDeleteI cannot remember a time in my life when I have not been a reader. As cliche' as it may sound, I WOULD take a flashlight to bed to read way past my bedtime. As a working mom of 2 incredible children (Stella, 10 and Connor 5 1/2) I get up at 4am most mornings in order to get 2 hours of reading in before waking the kids up for school. Among my favorites (at the moment): Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, all of the Harry Potter's, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The English Patient and far too many more to name here. Thank you for starting this. I am thrilled for you and for all of us book lovers. So many doors open when one opens a book.
ReplyDeleteAs a young girl, The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner let me escape to a childhood I could only dream about. The exploration and crafty innovation the children used, all on their own, encouraged a sense of confidence and adventure. My sister and I enjoyed scavenging through the woods near our home, finding useful treasures and learning the love of hiking & discovery at a young & independent time. I like to think we created our own version of the Boxcar children 'playhouse' (home) at the old farmstead up on the hill.
ReplyDeleteIt started out with Sweet Pickles books. I loved Kidding Kangaroo, Loving Lion, and of course, Yakety Yak. I read these books over and over again, and so from the start, reading was something I couldnt get enough of! Even through my social butterfly teen years, a good book has been a constant companion. But when my Grandfather was diagnosed with a terminal illness (that he 'survived 11 years with!), books took on a new immediacy of meaning. Books by Vonnegut, Orwell, and Poe came into my world as a way to connect with 'the smartest man on the planet' my grandpa. (He knew every answer on Jeopardy, EVERY night) We would discuss and he would assign. It would take me many years to see these books, and my Grandpa, for what they/ we truly was... an iconoclast, a dreamer, and a seeker rolled into this cutie pie of a grandpa...
ReplyDeleteWhen he passed away, i was literally rearranging my bookshelf. I know this was not a coincidence, as i sank to the floor with the news that he was leaving, I was surrounded, and comforted, by books we shared and books that changed my life.
Whenever I read a book I feel a sense of nostalgia, a familiar smell in the spine, the initial anticipation of getting lost on an adventure that is at my fingertips and yet worlds away... I think of books as dear friends. I fully appreciate what The Dad said about never wasting time with a book!
I do not know where to get started with how much I love reading. Books are life. There are so many waiting to be discovered. I get kind of nervous sometimes when I am in a bookstore or the library and I think of all of the characters, adventures and lessons just waiting to be picked up, taken home, appreciated and shared and lived a little. "Pick, me! Pick ME!" I can hear them say. I find it MUCH easier getting recommendations from friends and family. It makes the decision so much easier and I am able to learn more about this person I love, whether I like the book or not! ; )
ReplyDeleteThe Boxcar Children was a favorite of mine (too!) when I first began to read. The Nancy Drew series was too much fun. In college I discovered the Catcher in the Rye and still love this book. Today, there are just too many to mention. But I will post my three line reviews as I finish books these days. Thanks for making it so relatively easy.
ReplyDeleteI can't resist making a list (sorry):
ReplyDeleteIf you're a kid, I say read just about anything you can get your hands on! Read whenever you have time! One of the most memorable books from my childhood is Sign of the Beaver. The Mandie books. I just read a book called Duck Boy to my kids, it was awesome. Nancy Drew. Blair's Nightmare. Yes, Secret Garden. Yes, Where the Red Fern Grows. Of course, The Chronicles of Narnia. Poppy, and Poppy and Rye, by Avi. A MUST READ: Rascal, by Sterling North. The Giver. Freak the Mighty (thanks to my husband's children's lit class @ the community college for introducing us to many of these). Red Scarf Girl. 1,000 Paper Cranes (not sure if I got that title exactly right). Little Women was SO GOOD, I just read that for the first time, at 30! Abel's Island (have a dictionary handy and be ready to expand your vocab!). Also I was in love with all of L.M. Montgomery's books (Anne of Green Gables, etc).
The Girl of the Limberlost!!!
High school: Please read The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. You will have to wade through a lot, but it's so worth it. I thought this book was far superior to Crime and Punishment, his most famous.
As an adult: Anything by Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Charlotte Bronte, more Dostoyevsky. And anything I can read with my kids (which is about all the reading I have time for anymore, other than homeschooling books).
And why have I always loved to read? As an escape, as a means of expanding my mind, for entertainment, for comfort, to learn, for friendship, to identify with others... why wouldn't anyone LOVE books?!
I love to read for so many reasons: to relax and turn my brain off of work, to learn about places and events, to live another life, to laugh, to cry, to let my imagination go free, to be in a place that only I am in.
ReplyDeleteI love to read just because I can. I think about how lucky I am to not have to go through life without the knowledge of a written language. It moves me to read as often as possible and to fight illiteracy in the world.
ReplyDeleteReading to escape, to dream, to drift, to learn, to love with more degrees, to fly, to experience, to tune empathy. When you have the gift of story you have it forever.
ReplyDeleteReading is like breathing. It's what you do to stay alive.
ReplyDeleteI always think of reading as an endless possibility of imagination and a place to go when you have nowere to go. Over all reading is manditory for suvirval! If you can't read a sign that says 'only turn right' and you turn left you could die ( no, you realy COULD DIE!)
ReplyDeleteOur mother would send my brother Dan and me to Grade School with a dollar each week for "milk money" so we could buy a carton of milk to drink with our lunch. But we would eat our sandwiches dry so we could buy 35-cent paperbacks at the magazine store on the corner where we waited for the bus. That meant two books on one week, but three the next. Some of the books were over our heads, treatises on economics and politics. But others were about things like pure energy and the self and the values of diversity told though science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov. I also enjoyed stories of men who just hit the road, lived free, traveled without even a toothbrush, learning to (almost) clean their teeth with the folded crease of one of those endless loops of cloth towel that predated paper towels. Must have been a guy thing. I'd read at recess when the other kids were playing ball, and on the bus back and forth to school. Homework was not nearly as interesting. As poor as we were, our mom didn't stop giving us "milk money" when she found out we were buying books.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I read? To gain knowledge or escape and have an adventure.
ReplyDeleteThe first book I remember reading was "The Carrot Seed" by Crockett Johnson. I love it's message of persistence and trust as well as the gardening theme. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be growing something.
I love reading. If it wasn't for reading I am not sure what I would do everyday.
ReplyDeleteSome people might call me a late reader, I just learned to read at my own pace. Reading has opened up the world to me.
And for all the kids out there like me, hang in there and keep trying because reading is one of the best things in the world.
"When I read a book I feel like I am next to a cozy warm fire --even though I am not next to a cozy warm fire... just reading a book!"
ReplyDeleteTyped for Little Sis by the Mom!
My earliest memory of reading is second grade. I was determined to read one of my sister's Nancy Drew books. I remember asking my mother what a gorilla was because I was reading it with the accent on the wrong syllable. They were a little too hard for me at that point so my dad used to buy me the Honey Bunch and Norman series at the bookstore at Hudson's downtown. I went on later to read every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy book, as well as all the Trixie Beldons. Another book from grade school times was Sky Island by Frank Baum. it never achieved the fame of The Wizard of Oz but it was just as good. I always felt like I entered a new world when I read a book. Still do i guess.
ReplyDeleteI've always enjoyed reading...don't remember not liking it. Perhaps because of creative joy of life ADD I never got around to reading obsessively like some little girls that I know, whipping through Nancy Drew books in a day. That seemed an impossible feat. And I have very vivid memories of my father, who would wake up at 4 in the morning just so he could have time to read. I suppose I've always admired people who read a lot.
ReplyDeleteNow I've found myself in my dream job...10 hours a week in a little branch library in Northern Michigan. My official title is "library clerk," but some folks in the neighborhood know me as Mary from the Brary. I think that's an emotional promotion, don't you? And what comes with this dream job? The challenge to be well read. Read books I've snubbed my nose at. Open minded word palate.
I must note: I LOVE The Librarian's title "Mary from the Brary" I always wanted a nickname. And I love "emotional promotion" those are the best kind!
ReplyDeleteSuch a great Yourstory, thank you for sharing!
I liked to read because it was the best way to evade myself, to be transported to another time and place, to be someone else, to learn about other people and share their thoughts and feelings, like opening a curtain a bit and snoop in someone else's life, like being an invisible witness of an interesting event. Today I like it because it helps me to have a wider vision of the world and myself, I can learn just about anything from cooking to floor installing, it makes me wonder about our world, my life, my choises, it shows me several points of view, some I never thought about; it helps me to be comforted when I'm down, gives me courage when I doubt, reading is the key to real succes and knowledge, an antidote for intolerance and indiference, a weapon against control and fanatism, if only everyone could have access to books...
ReplyDeleteThe fist book I read were an illustrated series of the classics, I liked specially those about adventures, Jules Verne was my heroe: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, Around the World in Eighty Days, Captain Grant's Children and many others, also The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson and of course Tom Sawyer and Little women, that I read over and over. When I was older I think the first book without images I read was Heart by Edmondo De Amicis, I was in love with this book, I read it several times as well. I also remeber being very impresed by the stories od E.A. Poe (I adored them) and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. There are too many to mention, I loved too Benito Pérez Galdós, Honnore de Balzac, Juan Rulfo, Miguel Angel Asturias, Gabriela Mistral, Jorge Luis Borges, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and then, older I loved Jorge Ibarguengoitia, Juan José Arreola, Mario Vargas Llosa, Julio Cortazar, only the first books of Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, I was very fun too of Milan Kundera.
The first book(s) I remember reading are the Little House series and Witch of Blackbird Pond. After that I was HOOKED. Mystery, fiction, nonfiction, horror you name it I've read it.
ReplyDeleteI read cause I breathe. I cannot have one without the other. I must read every day and especially before I go to sleep if even just a page.
ReplyDeleteFirst book? I have no idea but at school our readers in grade one were dick & Dora with their pets nip & fluff.
Fiction author everyone should read would be John marsden. Honest, real.
Non- fiction author Jeffrey masson. Teaching the world animals are sentinent beings in a wholly accessible way.
The first book I ever remember reading (not the first book I ever read, but the one I remember) is Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots. Why that one, read when I must have been 7 or 8 is the first I don't know, but I know it set me on the path to be a vampire reader. I love to read because I was raised in first an apartment and then a house full of books and readers. My father reads both to learn and to escape. My mother reads to learn and to figure out how to make things: food, clothing, money, the most of life. My younger sister reads for her own reasons and my younger brother for his, too. My favorite books are many, but several I shall mention here I wish were better known. A Barrel of Laughs A Vale of Tears, The Silent Gondoliers by William Goldman, Memoirs of a Bookbat by Kathryn Lasky, The Silver Kiss by Annette Kurtis Klause and East of the Sun, West of the Moon by Mercer Mayer. Each has served me well and will, I hope, for many years to come.
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