Reading History 

Memories reading, books we have read, characters we have met, and placed we have visited within the pages of books shape who we are. Here are the books and reading memories that have shaped my life.

Reading Timeline:

Infant years: Listening to board books with my parents like, I’m a Crazy Monster (I still have this book and I now read it to my daughter)

Toddler Years: Picture books such as What can I Dream About and Albert the Running Bear (my brother’s favorite picture book which is now in his son’s room)

Early elementary school: Bernstein Bears book collection (I once organized them by published date)

Elementary school: Ordering scholastic books from school and being ecstatic when they arrived. I especially loved the Bailey School Kids series.

Middle school: Walking to the library and spending hours searching for just the right book. This is when I feel that my reading roots spread out.  Watered with each book I pulled off the shelf. Burrowing deep and wide across genres and settling into the young adult section. Words from books as Pope Joan fed me as I blossomed into what I would consider an avid reader.

High school: I was the student with the book buried in my desk. Feeling the pull of the words when I wasn’t allowed to read. My book dog eared and ready for any moment I had free to read. What books define this period of my reading history? Any book that piqued my interested from the library. During this time I was also shaped by my English courses. Some novels I enjoyed such as the Scarlett Letter (where I first learned to annotate and analyze a text) and books I did not enjoy such as Heart of Darkness.

College: This era of my reading life shifted, as I had to learn how to read college textbooks. During this time, I sprouted new leaves as nonfiction became more and more of an integral part of my reading life.  With a few pleasure reads when time allowed during track and field trips or vacations. One including my trip to Colorado where I spent two days hunkered inside finally reading Gone with the Wind (My grandmother’s favorite novel given to me a few Christmases before).

Post College: Two words describe this blissful time in my reading. Pleasure reading. I was not required to read any specific book, expect of course the books I read to my 4^th and 5^th grade students as read alouds (all of which I loved and I hope the kids enjoyed hearing as well).  Authors such as Janet Evanovich and Sophie Kinsella made me laugh. While Clive Cussler, Francine Rivers, and Charliane Harris filled my days with adventure, grace, and fantasy.

Graduate school/Current day: The tides of my reading turned back once again pulling my attention toward nonfiction reading. My reading including mostly professional development books for work, graduate articles and texts, and parenting and pregnancy books or blogs.  As always in my reading past, trying to squeeze in a few choice books while snuggled up with my daughter. While reading my own books I can’t help but stop and look at her and hope that she has her own rich reading future in the making; shaped by the words she is listening to even now and by the words she is yet to read.