Books, Books and More Books - Part 1

Bookshelves in my Living Room

If I'm addicted to anything, it's books. Lots and lots of books. Everything from romance to suspense to history to art to short story anthologies to classic literature and everything inbetween. I love books! Without books my life would certainly be duller and much less interesting.

Some of my earliest memories are trips to the local library with my Mom. It was way before I knew how to read. I'd sit cross-legged on the carpet in the child's section of the library with an assortment of picture books in my lap. I would go through them one by one and always take a stack of books home with me. Mom and I must have made a lot of trips to that library, because I think I "read" every book on the shelves in the Early Children's section. Mom would often sit on the carpet next to me and quietly read some of the stories to me. I loved that time together and will always treasure those moments.

When I got into grade school, our whole class would walk to the library once every two weeks and we could all check out books to take home with us. I never missed a school trip to the library. My earliest favorites were the Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. I read all of them. Then I fell in love with the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.  Some other books that stand out from those grade school days are The Enormous Egg by Oliver Buttersworth, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Old Yeller and Savage Sam by Fred Gibson, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (I still have my autographed copy) and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.

I remember at the start of 5th grade that my teacher called my parents in for a conference and told them I spent too much time reading fiction. She thought that was the reason for me being a "daydreamer" and insisted the situation be corrected immediately. For a time I forbidden to read anything but non-fiction.  So I discovered the biographies of Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket, George Washington and Francis Marion "The Swamp Fox." Who needed fiction when the true stories were even better?

I think at this point my teacher got really frustrated. She must have then said something about science books, because I brought my school science book home and read it from cover to cover and was totally fascinated.  So then I visited the science section of the library and read everything I could get my hands on about dolphins and whales and birds and every subject you can think of. I think about this time my teacher gave up and I was allowed to read anything and everything once again.

I still remember the day, when I was in 6th grade, when I told the librarian that I'd read every single book (or just about every book) in the Children's section of the library. She smiled and said "Come with me." And that's when she led me into the Adult section and introduced me to a treasure trove of classics. First off was Conrad Richter's "The Awakening Land" series" The Trees, The Fields and The Town. I think that's when I read James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans for the first time (I'm re-reading that one now). A couple of my other favorites from that time were A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes and The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West.

By this time our school no longer made trips to the library, so I went every Saturday with my best friends next door, and we'd walk to the library rain or shine and bring home a new selection every week. I got really interested in reading anything I could find about pioneers and the Oregon Trail. One of my great-grandmother's had come across on the Oregan Trail when she was just a kid, and I'd grown up hearing stories about Cowboys and Indians and Buffalo. I dearly wished that my grandmother had written down her own story instead of passing it on verbally to her children and grandchildren. I thought a lot of her stories got lost in the telling.

Well, when I was ready to enter college I chose a Bachelor of Art's in English Literature. I thought I wanted to be an English Teacher, but it didn't turn out that way. Life got in the way. I received my BA in English, but never did complete the Teaching Program. That's okay, because I discovered after a year of substitute teaching that it really wasn't my thing. I went on to other jobs, including Tech Writing, but always retained my love of books. And in spite of all my 5th grade teacher's efforts to the contrary, I'm still a dreamer. (Read more about books in Part 2.)