New Library Card!
This evening, I popped by the library to pick up my brand new library card! It was really exciting, though I feel like a huge dork saying that. I think it would make my mom proud, though, to know that she raised a kid who values reading and books enough to get all dorkily excited about a library card…even if, until getting a Kindle last summer, that daughter hadn’t been a reader for years.
Despite having been on a bit of a reading hiatus, I never stopped loving books. I stopped reading, honestly, because I have moved so much inside the Seattle area, and those boxes of books just started feeling overwhelming every time I thought about moving again. It didn’t help that I really couldn’t even conceive of the idea that I might get rid of any of the books. Get rid of books? After you’ve read them? That just seemed wrong, somehow. After I read a book, I usually have an emotional attachment to it. It marks a particular time and place in my life, and becomes a part of my history. I have always been more of a book-buyer than a book-borrower because with my notoriously-bad memory, how else will I remember the books I’ve read if I can’t SEE them sitting on my shelf? But, not wanting to take up more space with the books kept winning out, so eventually I just stopped buying and reading books altogether.
I decided to get a Kindle this past summer, which (more than anything else), is a testament to my mom’s persistence. Not that she told me I should get a Kindle, but she never stopped recommending books for me to read. Eventually it dawned on me that I could still read AND not take up more space on my shelves, because we have the technology to solve that problem, now. I was slow to choose an eBook reader, because they all had different (dis)advantages. I eventually chose the Kindle, even though it didn’t support library books at the time, for two reasons: I knew that eventually Amazon would have to make the Kindles library-book-friendly, and I like supporting my local booksellers. (Hey, I live in Seattle. Amazon IS my local bookseller, just like Starbucks is my local coffeshop. Except I don’t drink coffee. But that’s not the point.)
My mom instilled a love for books and reading in me from a very early age. She had a copy of The Read Aloud Handbook, which I remember eventually became very worn and clearly well-used. So many of my favorite childhood memories are of my mom reading to me. I lost my first tooth one night while she was reading to me (though I can’t remember if it was Ramona The Pest, or The Boxcar Children). I remember discovering the crossed-out paragraphs and margin notes in Superfudge, reminding her not to read the parts about Santa not being real. I remember that she had to try twice to get me to listen to The Secret Garden, because I was not having any of it and refused to sit still the first time around. I remember sort of relating to the main character in Wild Violets, and that my mom related to her, too. When I got older, she started recommending other books for me to read, including some of her favorites, many of which have become my favorites, as well. Among them: The Color Purple, The Catcher in the Rye, Traveling Mercies, Me Talk Pretty One Day, The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke. Ultimately, I bought the Kindle and started reading again because books are a common language that my mom and I have always shared, and I missed that. I wanted to talk about books with her again, because she has always had such great taste in literature, and I didn’t want to miss out on any of her recommendations!
This summer, we’ve discussed a bunch of books, and issues that the books sparked. We read and/or discussed: The Help, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, My Sister’s Keeper (which apparently has been banned in some places), and a few others. It’s been really nice to be reading again, and to be having these conversations with my mom.
What about you? What do you love about reading? Does it remind you of something from your past, or does it make you hopeful for the future?