Reflections on Childhood Reading

Do you remember when you really fell in love with books? When you found yourself yearning for your next good book? I know some people who can point to a specific book or time in their life. Not me. I don’t remember NOT reading.

I wish I did, but I don’t have memories of my parents reading to me. In addition to my mom assuring me, the evidence was there on the bookshelves full of children’s picture books. Our favorites were saved for them to read to their grandchildren. They must have modeled well, because I do remember reading Wacky Wednesday and other picture books to my younger brother.

My first memory of a library is from elementary school. Our school was very small and the library was basically a classroom with a bunch of bookshelves. I can visualize the counter where the due dates were stamped into our books. I remember in second grade, stretching to reach the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. I also remember the middle & high school library (I did say we were a small school, K-12 was all on the same small campus) where we would take notes on index cards from periodicals and books from the reference section – we couldn’t take them home. Doing research was a lot more time intensive in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Lincoln Library in Springfield, IL around 1976. This was the ‘floating staircase’ with the trendy orange carpet.

One of my strongest memories was visiting the public library. We lived in a very small town outside Springfield, Illinois. Rochester didn’t have a library so we drove to the brand new (in 1976) Lincoln Library in downtown Springfield. In addition to being HUGE to my 8-year-old eyes, it had a floating staircase! At least every two weeks during the summer, my mom would take her four children to the library and we could pick out as many books as we could carry. I would have a stack of books from my hands to my chin, ready to check out with my own card.

I remember being so excited to get home and start reading. Getting lost in other worlds was my form of creativity. I was pretty nerdy and not athletic, so books took me back in time with the Ingalls family from the Little House in the Prairie books or to another 12 year-old’s life in a Judy Blume novel.

As a teenager, school took up more time but when I was longing for a book, I would find my way to my parent’s two bookshelves in our living room. There I found The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough and started a life-long love of family sagas. My mom read a wide range of genres so I found The Bonfires of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, and Love Story by Erich Segal (and I cried buckets of tears!). I also remember discovering Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews – definitely NOT from my parent’s bookshelf – and being so intrigued and shocked at the same time.

Colleen organizing our bookshelf. She is ‘reading’ Reengineering Management – one of my professional development books at the time. 1997

Flashing forward…I believe I created a similar environment for my girls. Our house was filled with children’s books in every room and it was part of their bedtime routine (bath, books, bed). Luckily, our town has a fabulous library with an amazing children’s section. We spent hours flipping through books, playing with the trains or puppets and in story time. They both read throughout their teenage years depending on their school workload.

If you give me five minutes, I could list ten things I could have done better as a parent for every one I got right. Leaving my girls with a love of reading was one right thing. I almost used the word “teaching” instead of “leaving” but stopped myself. Teaching was not the right word. We never required they read a certain number of books over the summer or had a list of required reading. I found pretty quickly that suggesting books to a teenage girl was a sure way for them NOT to read it. We also didn’t monitor their reading – they read what they wanted, when they wanted. Books and reading were just always around and available. My husband and I always had books we were reading. We took frequent trips to the library or the bookstore, so there was always an opportunity to pick out a book.

My one regret as a parent was that I don’t have a picture of all four of us sitting in our family room, each one silently reading on lazy weekend day. Those were good days. I suppose it could still happen. Now, we share books with each other. Life has come full circle.

Happy Reading!