Indocrination

Booking Through Thursday

When growing up did your family share your love of books? If so, did one person get you into reading? And, do you have any family-oriented memories with books and reading? (Family trips to bookstore, reading the same book as a sibling or parent, etc.)

The one family member who really got me into reading was my mom. I remember going to the library with her when I was about five and being totally awed that I could bring books home with me. also, when my grandmother would take me grocery shopping, she would let me choose a Little Golden Book to keep at her house. I loved to look at the pictures at first and then when I learned to read, I'd read them to my younger cousins and brother.

My mother loved to read and had a bookcase full of what would be called classics now. When I was 10 or 12, I began wanting to read those books. She made several recommendations to me: Gone With the Wind, Imperial Woman, Love Is Eternal, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and many others. She'd warn me that some of the books would be difficult to understand and that I should look in a dictionary to understand more of the words.

About a year later, I began begging to go to the library and she'd take me 2-3 times a week before finally complaining it was too much. She told me to check out the max allowed on my card so that she could make fewer trips. I was delighted. I was checking out about 15 books at a time. She was always checking out books too.

Once I became an adult, we'd pass books back and forth on occasion but then our tastes began to diverge. That was okay. We could still spend an afternoon together just reading contentedly. My father and brother are not readers and they were not into that. In fact, my dad was sometimes jealous of my mother's love for reading and he'd find reasons to interrupt her.

Lucky me, my husband is a reader too!

I really appreciate this question today. I have many unhappy memories of my mother and it is really nice to remember this and be filled with a warm glow.