Do you remember the book that made you love reading? For some, it's hard to pinpoint because you've loved reading since you were little. While I have memories of going to the library when I was little, I don't remember any specific books that I read with my mom that I loved.
It was in third grade that my teacher really shoved at us the reading program they used at the school: Accelerating Reading (AR). If you aren't familiar with AR, they take books and decide what reading level they are, create a quiz students can take after reading the book, then decide how many points that quiz is worth. When I was in school, we had to get so many points every 9 weeks to pass Reading. If we didn't get those points, we had to stay in during recess to earn at least some of those points back. Joke was on me though: when I had to stay in, it was with the boys in my class who hadn't earned their points either. And the books were never good.
My hatred for reading went on through fourth and fifth grade, with teachers I did love, but I just didn't want to read. The one book I remember reading during that time was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in fifth grade and that didn't even grab my attention to get me out of my funk. It was my sixth grade teacher who stopped and talked to me about reading. We only had to read three books per quarter that were in our reading level and pass our AR tests. It was then that she talked me about audiobooks: I could listen to someone else read the book while I followed along with a physical book in my hand. The first book I started with (the only one I remember, to be honest) was The Witches by Roald Dahl. I LOVED that book. I don't remember what it was about, but I listened to it in just a few days and past the test with flying colors.
I finish reading in sixth grade and remember going on to Middle School and at least getting through English. In seventh grade we read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and I ended up hating the book. We ended up watching three different movies based on the book! THEN they took us to see the stage play. Ugh! In eighth grade we read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. It was with this book that my interest in World War II started. I've never been able to explain my interest in learning about World War II. It probably stems from, like most people, not understand why anyone would treat people they way they were treated during WWII.
Moving into high school, I remember reading Great Expectations in English I. I hated this book, with a burning passion. I don't remember WHY, especially because I've looked at the book recently and it actually sounds good now. But I hated it! I remember a friend telling a group of us at lunch one day that her mom had even told her she remembered hating it as well, so if she failed English because of that book, my friend wouldn't get in trouble. Going into second semester we read Romeo and Juliet and I actually enjoyed it (probably because I already knew all about it, so it wasn't really anything new). Sophomore year I ended up in the best English class with three friends and one of my favorite teachers I had in high school. One of the books that stood out to me that we read was The Pearl. We spent a lot of time complaining about that book and class and actually just life in general (there were many days we spent half our period complaining about the cafeteria food with our teacher before anything else actually happened!). It was that same year that my friend Megan told me I needed to read a book that was going to be made into a movie soon. It was going to star the guy who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. That book:
Twlight by Stephenie Meyer
I fell in LOVE with this book. I got through Twilight and New Moon just before Christmas and was able to ask for Eclipse as a present. I spent most of Christmas day reading and finished it in record time (at least for me). It was that following August that Breaking Dawn came out and I went with Megan (and several other friends) to the wonderful store that was Borders for a midnight release party. I spent the next two days reading Breaking Dawn and was so sad when it was over! While I know many had PLENTY of thoughts about the things that happened in the book, I loved the book.
My issue with Twilight, twelve years after I read the books, is that when I mention them most people look at me with the "Really?" look. But after talking to enough of them, what most people think of is the movies. I have MANY thoughts on the movies, which I will probably talk about in a later post and youtube video.
I hate those movies. I really do. I was so excited about the movies and they were a complete disappointment. And Stephenie Meyer talked about working with them for the script (sometimes only a little) and did so many interviews for the movies.
My love for reading slowly grew from there. One day when my mom and I were walking through the mall we stopped in the small bookstore that malls used to have. I ended up coming across a book called Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz. Because I never asked for books, my mom bought me books one and two in the series and I fell in love with that world. The next several years were filled with my waiting for the rest of the series and finding other similar series. Because I had found I enjoyed reading, I signed up for the seniors Novels class with a friend and was so excited for it. Our theater director was the teacher and I was so excited to finally have her in class! While she was an amazing teacher, I still have mixed feelings about whether I should have taken the class. I read only half the books we read in class (which were many!) and because of that did not pass the class. However, I ended up reading one of my favorite books: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The books we read in class are the books that I am now hearing so much about in my current job. My knowledge of these books (whether I read them or not) has greatly helped me as I work with my students when they pick out books for their Independent Reading Projects.
Of course, my love for reading as just grown from there. Originally I was going to be a Special Education teacher but found that teaching just wasn't for me, along with the fact that my dad was considering moving for a new job and the state we would be moving to did not have a degree for Special Education. I didn't find myself upset over the prospect that if I moved with my parents, I wouldn't be able to continue in the same field of study. As I looked into what I wanted to study (after my dad decided NOT to take the job) I ended up coming across the Library Technician Assistant degree. I took one class and after three weeks in the class officially changed my degree.
Becoming a librarian is the LAST thing I would ever had imagined I would do. I was quiet and shy even going into college ten years ago. I hated talking to people I didn't know, yet my job now requires me to get to know a new group of students every year as they move up to the high school.
Books have literally changed my life.
