Tonight in class Andrea asked a few people about books that affected them, that made an impact or had something about it that stuck with them. I started to think about where my love of reading began, and I've come up with a three-part conclusion.
2) When I was in elementary school, I read the Chronicles of Narnia. I got sooo involved in those books. It was the first time a book made me cry and it certainly got my imagination moving.
3) Finally, in high school, my mom got me a book series: The Mark of the Lion trilogy by Francine Rivers. It takes place in Jerusalem, Rome, and Germania around 70AD. The first two books follow the story of a Jewish-Christian slave girl and her Roman masters. The third book follows a gladiator and his journey back home after he wins his freedom in the arena.
I got excited about reading as a kid, and I still read occasionally until my teen years, but I was only a 'reader' not a 'reader.' But I've basically had a book glued to my hand since I read the Rivers' books. I was hooked, no turning back.
What book got you hooked?
Love the book border - makes a strong impression - somehow rows of Nooks or Kindles would not say I love to read and care about the written word. But some day they might.
ReplyDeleteBeatrix Potter and Mrs. Tiggy-Wingle hooked my imagination to reading and then Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson hooked my heart.
Great question!
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt, the Little House on the Prairie books. My mom started reading Little House in the Big Woods to us as a bed time story and I had learned to read by the time we were through with that.
We didn't have a lot of money, so I would get one book in the series for my birthday and then one for Christmas every year. Of course, I could have gotten them from the library, but I needed those books to be mine.
I think that the anticipation I felt helped fuel my desire to read. It almost made it seem like a privilege. I remember a friend of mine got the whole box set all at once, and I felt like that was cheating. Also Laura could be a little brat and I liked that, because a lot of kids books in the early 80s (at least the ones my mom and grandmother got me) had perfect little children who rarely did anything wrong, but Laura did things and felt things I could identify with.
Rachel I would do the SAME THING! I brought home a stack of books from the library and would blow through them in a week during the summers.
ReplyDeleteThere are SO MANY that touched me as a kid but one I kept reading over and over was To Race A Dream...it was a about a teenager named Theo in the 1930's who loved to write and wanted to race horses but she couldn't because she was a girl. So her friend Carl, a poor immigrant boy, convinces her to take a job at the nearby racetrack...so she poses as a boy to do so. IT'S SO GOOD and was always inspiring to me.
I loved the Mark of the Lion trilogy, particularly the first two books. They weren't books I would normally consider, but a lady I went to church with when I lived in Tennessee let me borrow her copies and I really liked them.
ReplyDeleteI loved horses when I was growing up, so I devoured any horse book I could get my hands on. My particular favorites were the Black Stallion series (I'm pretty sure I had the books and the movie memorized) and the Thoroughbred series, which was about a racing farm in Kentucky. Anne McCaffrey's books, particularly her Dragonriders of Pern series, were also favorites of mine in middle and high school.