Kristen GwenI always loved story. My mom would read to my brother and me every night we were able. We traveled from the Big Woods to the Dakota Territory with Laura. We would ride dragons with Princess Cimorene through the Enchanted Forest. We would all cry when we reached that one moment in Where the Red Fern Grows … you know the one. But when I really started making reading my own was in the 4th grade.
My favorite outfit at the time was jeans and my Star Trek Next Generation t-shirt. Despite my love of sci-fi TV, when it was reading time in Mrs. Richards’ class I picked a tiny, pink book by Patricia MacLachlan called Sarah, Plain and Tall. It was sort of like the Little House books in that it was set in the prairie, which I was obsessed with. It contained a story of a woman traveling from her beloved sea to find a different life in the waving grasslands of Kansas. Within the pages of that book, I placed myself within all the characters and lived the story with them.
How does reading do that to us? How do mere splotches of ink on paper yank us out of the world we’re living in, and transport us to another time and place? We live the lives of Jo March, Anne Shirley, Percy Jackson, and Harry Potter right along with them. We learn the hard lessons they learn, but from afar and with a lot less goblins or Josie Pye’s, as well as grow empathy for others, and build up our creativity as we take in words. And for me, this love affair with reading all started with Sarah Wheaton.
I hope as summer continues, that you and your kiddos fall in love with or continue loving reading. We can learn so much from the lives of these people who never existed anywhere by in our imaginations. Thank you for indulging me in my ode to reading. And I’d love to hear what book started the fire of reading for you. Please leave a comment. I’d love to know.
Happy Reading!
Misha
Michelle Kaderly Welsh
Elise Haroldson
It’s so true what a good book can do. I hated reading until college when my mom gave me her old copy of Christy. I couldn’t put it down. I later became a teacher for underprivileged kids because of that book. And of course, that inspired my first book, Sour Lemon and Sweet Tea!
The summer before fourth grade I devoured Nancy Drew books and saved every penny to buy the next in the series. In sixth grade a librarian kept me stocked with Newberry Award books, such as The Bronze Bow and Island of the Blue Dolphins. A neighbor also loaned me her Little House on the Prairie books. Like you, Kristen, reading did more than entertain me. It pushed me beyond myself and to grow in character. I’m thankful for many individuals who encouraged me to read.