For the love of Reading

I cannot look at this book without feeling the excitement I felt the day I opened a new one in my one room school house. I believe it is the book that I learned to read with as I have no memory of another before it. Just looking at it now I can remember and relive the wide-eyed entering of a new life, one where I could discover words for myself, instead of memorizing the script.

I had long been able to read a book to you, but it is because I had it read to me so many times that I had it memorized. Honestly, it is probably the richest I have ever felt, when I learned to read.



I still feel the flush in my cheeks as I page through the illustrations and simple dialogue. Of course, I could not help purchase the volumes one by one as they transported me back in time at each stop where I found them. It wasn't that my childhood was so romantic-----I used reading to escape a very unhappy real life. Reading has become an obsession with me. I found the word "bibliophile", and though it sounds like I wouldn't want to be called that, it is indeed what I am. I cannot live without a book tucked somewhere on my person.



Unlike a lot of others, I do not mind waiting for a train, waiting for a meeting of another, waiting for someone I am with to do an errand....as long as I have a trusty volume of something to read. It is a little like "bonus time" to me. Time I don't get to read otherwise.



Of course, the internet works wonderfully for me, a reader, so much at my fingertips, so much in my own home. But, alas, there is nothing like a good old page turning. There is nothing like the yellowed page with hand-written notes in the margin. Did you ever watch "84 Charring Crossroad" ? Oh, my what a good movie! It is a story for those who love, love, love books. It is with Ann Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins.......

Ann's character chides the bookseller for sending her a book as a gift without as much as writing a to/from in it. He, afraid to "ruin" the book. Oh, it is a love story too, but the love of books is the star of the show.

Anyway, all this is to say, that I think the purpose of this blog is to discuss my love of books, which ones I love, and why I like them. I especially love good illustrated children's books.

I am a word freak, so I especially like books that are delicious to read aloud. It is a test of a good book, when reading aloud is necessary to get all the joy from it.

Today, I read in William Barclay's Gospel of Mark, this delicious sentence: "The experts in the law were hoist with their own petard". It is a sentence that I want to use someday, in some conversation to make me look smart. LOL. I am going now to look up the silly words, they make me laugh, but somehow, I know the writer cut to the quick.