Books and Childhood

I love to read. Makes sense since I love to write. I've been an avid reader since I was a child. I would read books over and over and over and over. I read Black Beauty 20-something times. I was obsessed. I would pretend I was Black Beauty. I would cry every time I read the part about Ginger... don't want to give anything away if you haven't read it. My imagination was very vivid and I pictured the well-described details so clearly... I was reading Lilly's Life today and she wrote about books and reading and books she read as a child and how she selects books based on how the cover looks and gives a great guide to selecting a book by its cover. So go check it out! I started to comment... and realized it was going to get long. So I brought my thoughts back home. I have some memories of books that I don't remember the names of. For example... A book about this popular teenage girl who tries to call this boy she likes but dials the wrong number and ends up talking to this other guy. Lon story short, they become friends on the phone and start to really like each other. Then she finds out who he is... short guy, big nose. And she has to decide if she still likes him or not. Another book was about a girl who would dream things and then they came true. And she would see bad things like a bridge blowing up and stuff. When I was younger, I was obsessed with a picture book that was also informational... The Album of Horses. I would play stable in the hallway of our apartment complex and I named every horse in the book and took care of them... and Black Beauty and Ginger were in that book for me... The funny thing is that I don't remember when I started reading... but I do remember the books I read and loved. The books that offered me an escape from feeling hungry or ashamed. That showed me that there was a better world than the one I lived in that was overwhelmed by chaos and wickedness. When I read, I became part of the world that was offered in those pages. I even created a little cozy reading cubby in my bedroom closest... which was also the scene of the crime that got me kicked out of the Brownies... but I digress. Charlotte's Web... anything by Judy Blume... Bridge to Terabithia... From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler... Harriet the Spy... A Wrinkle in Time... The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe...The Secret Garden... A Tree Grows in Brooklyn... Sweet Valley High... The Against Taffy Sinclair Club... The Girls of Canby Hall... I don't know that I could ever possibly capture all of the books that saved me as a child. From the serious to the silly. Each one holds a special place in my soul.