I can't say that I remember much about learning how to read. I do have vague recollections of reading books such as Green Eggs and Ham and Are You My Mother? to Dad in the evenings, and being very frustrated doing it. I recall my distinct distain for being sent to my room to read for 20 minutes most evenings. I guess reading because I had to or reading what someone else tells me to has never really been something I enjoyed, though with age it did get more tolerable - good thing!
My first "adult" book (as I called it) was Jurassic Park, which Dad had bought for me when I was in the 6th grade. The movie had just recently been released and I LOVED it! We were in the Staunton mall one evening, walking by the Walden bookstore and Dad asked me if I'd like to have a copy of Jurassic Park the book - my first reaction, "there's a book?!" The reading was still a little advanced for me - I could read and understand it, but it was a slow process and I only got through the first few pages on my first attempts at reading it. Still, I carried that book around with me for weeks, almost as a sort of literary status symbol - my first book that hadn't come off the shelf of the children's or young adult section of the bookstore.
The true "joys" of reading books that had been assigned and had a deadline for completion began in high school; actually, the summer before high school. Up until this point reading books that had been assigned for class wasn't half bad and I enjoyed most of them. Enter: Robinson Crusoe and The Sea Wolf. For my freshman Honors English class I was to read both books over the summer and do a variety of projects based on the books. Of course I spent most of the summer reading the books I wanted to read instead of the ones I had to read. I began the daunting summer reading project the last week or so before school started, and some how managed an A on the assignment. Unfortunately our teacher lost his brief case shortly after we found out our grades and because he no longer had all of that information he decided not to count that large project grade toward our 6 weeks grade. All of that work for nothing! I received a B for the 6-weeks in that class, which would have been an A had my reading project been included. While my freshman English class was trudging through works of classic literature, the senior Honors English class was reading books like The Horse Whisperer, which I decided would be worth reading after seeing so many of my older peers reading copies. It was a MUCH easier read for me than Robinson Crusoe or Brave New World. Of course I re-read The Horse Whisperer my senior year as well.
Years later after completing high school, college, and graduate school I have taken the time to sit down and read/re-read some of those classics that were on reading lists in high school on my own time and my own terms. Robinson Crusoe and Brave New World still took some perseverance to get through. Fahrenheit 451 was a much easier read. I've also read many that I hadn't ever picked up before: To Kill a Mockingbird (great book!), The Iliad, Frankenstein, Dracula, to name a few.
These days I am also focused on introducing Addisyn to the wonderful world of books and reading. This endeavor began when I was around 6 months pregnant and began reading some young adult classics to her. By the time she was born I think I read around 18 to her. I also read Oh, The Places You Will Go to her on a daily basis. Now we read board books, Dr. Seuss books, and Disney story books, and most of the time she is very content to just sit there and look at the book while I read to her, definitely a good start! I look forward to her having her own library card when she's old enough to have one, and hope that she will be as excited to get one as I was (that old, pink card stock Waynesboro Public Library card with the little metal strip attached to it). I hope that I will be able to inspire such a love of books in her that trips to the library getting new books will be part of an effective reward system for as she gets older.
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