A Lifelong Love of Literature

JRR Tolkien

It started when I was 3 years old.  I was given a set of books that were considered children's classics.  Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan and others that I have since forgotten.  I had Charlotte's Web read to me so often that I memorized the entire tome.  I went into kindergarten as the only kid who could read and got segregated to a "reader's table" where I could silently read books several levels below my level while other kids discovered how to write the letter A. 

By the time I was in 3rd grade, I was being sent to the 4th grade for reading because that was as far as the elementary school I went to would go to provide for bored kids.  At home, I was reading books well beyond my age range, but at school I was still being given Dr Seuss books.  Instead of playing outside, I tucked myself away into my room and read voraciously.  Living life in the reality of others was far better than accepting my own reality. 

In 5th grade I took a short detour, I chose to play the violin and I stuck with it through high school.  It was good to have some other hobby, but I never really loved it.  I always felt like I was horrible at it and that it should have been left to far better violinists. 

By junior high, I had read an entire warehouse of books ranging from elementary level to college level.  My dad had gotten a job with a company that did the Scholastic Book Fairs and one of the perks was that they owners let me have as many books as I wanted to read.  This made it easy later when book reports were due to think back to a book that I particularly enjoyed and churn out an essay without having the added stress of actually reading the book on a time crunch. 

In high school, my laziness overtook my need to read as much as possible.  I cycled between honor's English classes and standard level courses because the standard teachers felt I wasn't challenged enough and the honor's teachers felt like I didn't care enough.  I guess they were all right.  I didn't want to read a book and write an entire paper about what the color green meant to me.  Reading was never about understanding every nuance of what the writer may or may not have intended.  For me, reading was an escape from reality and an entrance to a world where anything was possible.

As an adult, I gave up reading for a time.  I read maybe two books a year for quite some time. Then I got the Kindle app on my first iPhone and the drought was over (and my bank account was sad).  I read any book that was popular just to know what people were talking about.  I rarely went to see a book-based movie without having first read the book so that I could compare the director's vision with the original author's story telling. 

My son is very good at reading, and I was hoping he would get more from me than my love of tech and video games.  He is good about sitting down and reading whole books, but I fear he doesn't challenge himself enough because he only does what is required and not what he is capable of.  I tell him that books are a gateway to whole other worlds and that they can be infinitely better than watching TV shows or playing video games, but he just doesn't feel the same spark I did as a kid.

My favorite genre of books is sci-fi/fantasy.  I prefer to be transported to fantastical worlds that hold no resemblance to this life and the stresses of normal life.  When I read a book that is centered on reality, like Gone Girl, I feel myself thinking about how insane the protagonist is for taking the actions they take.  Whereas in The Lord of the Rings, I felt like I could rationalize what they were doing because maybe I don't know what it's like in Middle Earth. 

So here is to cracking a book and leaving the world for a little while...