I don't remember a time when I didn't love books...just to hold them, look at them, feel them, smell them...and occasionally read them. My parents both read books, magazines and newspapers. My mother read the Bible, Bible stories for children and bedtime stories to my three brothers, my sister, and me. My grandparents and uncles and aunts all...
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I don't remember a time when I didn't love books...just to hold them, look at them, feel them, smell them...and occasionally read them. My parents both read books, magazines and newspapers. My mother read the Bible, Bible stories for children and bedtime stories to my three brothers, my sister, and me. My grandparents and uncles and aunts all had books that I loved to see and hold. My uncle had a collection of Reader's Digest Condensed Books, my grandpa and grandma had a collection of McGuffy's Readers and my other grandparents had a nice collection of children's books (they had 7 children and 33 grandchildren). I remember the first book of my very own--my mom went shopping and bought each of us kids a little something. I still go to my Grandma's kitchen (she was babysitting us while mom shopped) and see my "ma" hand me a Whitman's Tell-a-Tale book titled "The Three Little Pigs." I memorized each page with it's fun pictures and always wondered about "turnips". We attended a country school where we could check out books from a tabletop library. Our teacher chose these books for us from the county library. They were rotated every six weeks. I remember reading Sam and the Firefly, Moon and Star something (about young native American girls), Wind in the Willows, Heidi, A Pocket Full of Raisins, Countdown 3..2..1 (I wanted to be an astronaut), and the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. On Saturdays, when our family went to town, I loved to go to the town library in the basement of the community hall. Mrs. Lange, our nice librarian, helped me check out the Nancy Drews, Trixie Beldens, Donna Parkers, Cherry Ames, romance comic books, and teen magazines, as well as encouraging me to try other books she thought I would enjoy. Our high school had a very small library that I don't remember using much. There was a large college library in town where I was fascinated with the rows and rows and floors and floors of books and magazines. My college history class was held in a classroom in this library. I remember our professor teaching us how we see everything through our "frame of reference" as I looked out the large framed windows. He taught us how helpful it is to think of the frame of reference of others...how history is just someone's frame of reference in interpreting the "facts" as he sees them. I didn't read much in college outside of required reading (Watership Down, The Crucible, Wuthering Heights, and Pride and Prejudice are favorites).
Once I started teaching and after I married, I began reading for fun again--Evergreen, The Thornbirds, The Far Pavilions, Victoria Holt's--books which stay with me. I am so happy that my husband and children all love to read, too. My daughter even wants to join Shelfari. l'm adding my favorite books that I've read in the past and adding to the books I plan to read as I come across all the lists that I've saved. I hope to now have them all in one place. Ahhhh.
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