Reading: My lifelong love
“Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, throwing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up.” —Barbara Kingsolver, author
To me, there is no better way to explain my longtime relationship with reading.
I’m not sure how it started.
I cannot honestly say I don’t remember a part of my life when I couldn’t read. (As a kindergartner, I once struggled with the word “rabbit” at the kitchen table with my mom and younger sister, who got it right away.)
Perhaps my love for literature began with the weekly library visits I took with my mom, or perhaps it sparked when my aunt gave me a book in Ann M. Martin’s popular Baby-sitters Club series.
However it started, it grew to the point that I would try to read during dentist visits and would bring a book with me in the car, even if it was for a short trip across town.
Although my recreational reading yielded to academic reading in college, it’s stayed with me.
I hope you’ll let me share it with you, and I hope you’ll be willing to share your reading experiences with me.
