My reading life

"I was born a reader, it seems, surrounded by books, with free choice and plenty of time to read under my covers with a flashlight." (Passionate Readers)

That one statement pretty much sums up my reading life. A question surfaced the other day from a colleague: Did I remember learning how to read?

That made me really dig deep into the filing cabinet of my memories.

No. I don't recall how I learned to read. But I do remember my library card number . . . 176. I didn't have tons of books at my house growing up, but I did have access to the library and I had a reading mom. One of my favorite places to read was in the closet of my brothers' room surrounded by books like Go, Dog, Go (one of my favorites). My dad had built a shelf in there that recessed into the closet. What kid doesn't like holing up in a small, tight space to read. Under the covers and beneath the Christmas tree were some other favorite spots.

"People read for a multiplicity of reasons. . . . I'm grateful for my one life, but I'd prefer to live a thousand--and my favorite books allow me to experience more on the page than I ever could in my actual life." (I'd Rather Be Reading)

The books that really instilled a love of reading were the Little House on the Prairie books. Back in the day of the Sears Christmas catalog, I would browse through that toy book, dreaming and hoping that I would some day get the entire series for myself. 

I still have that set 34 years later.

My summers were spent walking the two blocks to the library and sprinting back home to hermit in my room reading. I recall one summer I was really intrigued with space and wanted to be an astronaut. Maybe it was the summer of Christa Mcauliff, the first teacher to go to space. My timeline is vague, but I wanted to know all I could. I remember thinking that if I really studied one thing in depth each summer, I would have learned a lot after several years. Well, I began with space. I read a lot of what our little library had on the subject of space. And unfortunately, my quest for extensive knowledge began and ended that summer.

My mom was a reader of novels. My dad read the magazines Time and Reader's Digest (my first foray into the internet was a search for Reader's Digest in 1996 while sitting in a computer lab at Utah State University with Tyler sitting beside me). I remember pulling A Wrinkle in Time off the shelf at the school library and stumbling through it. A junior high class requirement was to read a biography, so I went to the library and found a book on Chuck Yeager, the pilot who broke the speed of sound. I hated that book because I found it so boring. I picked up James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans off a shelf in our basement and didn't get very far due to the difficulty of the writing. Did those experiences make me less inclined to read? No. In fact today biographies or memoirs are one of my favorite genres to read. And perhaps Mohicans might be easier to read 25 years later.

My life as a reader has evolved over the years. Babar, Harriet the Spy, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, The Boxcar Children, and Beverley Cleary's endearing Ramona Quimby were a few I indulged in as a child. My desk in Mrs. Jones's third grade class even held the Bible that I would pull out and read. In my tween years it was the drama of Sweet Valley High and the mystery solving of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. I later moved onto authors Dorothy Keddington, Lois Duncan, and even admit to ashamedly reading a V.C. Andrews book or two. I loved Jack Weyland and Gerald Lund.

To Kill a Mockingbird was the first book I bought for myself. I can still vividly recall being in a Deseret Book store at a mall, looking through that book, and deciding to buy it.

During my college years, there's quite a gap in my reading experience. I claim to never have read a book for fun in college, but I'm sure I read something at least during the summer months.

In my 20s as a young mom, I read a lot of "self-help" books, namely parenting books and a few biographies. However, one of the most engaging novels that surfaces again and again in my literary conversations was a book suggested to me by a dear friend, Nancy Peixhot, in my Salt Lake ward: Phantom, the story of the Phantom of the Opera told from the viewpoint of the phantom. Such a captivating read. In fact Erik is spelled with a K instead of a C because of the main character of that book. In my 30s I started attending a book club which renewed my interest in other genres. That was a major turning point in my reading life. I have been exposed to books I wouldn't have otherwise picked up. I have loved talking about the books we read and making connections.

And now in my 40s I'm on a quest to teach my young students to be better readers and to instill a love of reading in them. Those are really my two goals as an educator. And I believe with 6 days left of school I just may have accomplished at least goal #2 when they beg me to let them read their books.

Tell me how I'm supposed to say no to that? So we sit and read and talk books and I love it.

So where am I now as a reader?

Well, I need reading glasses :) and I need deadlines. Books I borrow from the library get read more often than books I've bought and stored on my bookshelves at home. 

I continually add to my bookshelves, real and virtual. I most likely have way more books on my actual and virtual bookshelves than I'll ever read and that is quite all right. It reminds me of all that I do not know and have yet to discover and the stories I have yet to experience.

I am discovering a love for picture books. My students love it when I read to them. So I've been on a quest this year to discover picture books that tie in to the lesson I'm giving that day.

I document the books I read and have begun leaving a brief synopsis in Goodreads. I've found that I can remember reading books but I can only remember if I liked it or didn't. I want to recall more than that about the books I read. Plus Goodreads is a great site to get recommendations or to do a little sleuthing about a book I might be interested in reading before I actually commit to it.

I am still a bibliophile who seeks out bookstores on vacation much to the chagrin of a son-in-law. On our last family outing we discovered a bookstore in Boulder, Colorado that was a close second to Powell's in Portland.

I was born a reader and will always be a reader. It is definitely one of my most favorite things to do in my "spare" time.