I am a reader. I love it. I can't live without the written word. Doesn't matter who's it is. I have to get my reading fix everyday.
Reading does for me what drugs do for others. No kidding on that one. I started reading at a very young age and am so grateful to my Grandmother for introducing me to the wonder of books and the public library. For those of you who didn't know I grew up in Baltimore City. That's right, I was a city kid born and bred. The idea of country life was going to Edgewood mainly because there was no mass transit there.
Spending days getting lost in Enoch Pratt Public Library is truly part of the highlight reel from my childhood. The main library building was grand. There were many more sprinkled about the city and one located only four blocks from my house. But the main branch, the one located downtown was totally worth the trip. It was a grand building as you can see from my picture. It took up an entire city block on Cathedral Street. Looking at this picture takes me back.
So a little history lesson for you today. The Enoch Pratt library system of Maryland is one of the oldest in the country. The first branch opened in 1886. The library along with an endowment of one million dollars were a gift to the city from a philanthropist named, yes you guessed it, Enoch Pratt. (I wonder how much a million dollars from 1886 would be worth today?)
As we move into this newest century we are drawn to more electronic forms of communication and reading. I am just a guilty as the next guy. I used to travel for my job extensively and would carry with me at any one time at least five or six books. When I got to where ever I was going I always hit a bookstore. I never resented the time it took to go to the bookstore but I did resent the suitcase space the books took up.
Graduating to a kindle meant I could carry this little gadget and have thousands of books at my disposal. Sort of like carrying around my own library. Yeah, my eyes glazed over a bit when I thought that way too, and they still do.
I was very young when I started reading on my own...a trait I inherited from my mother and grandmother. We're all book hoarders, although I am trying to get my mother to join me in the electronic reading age. She's scared of the Kindle *shrugs*
ReplyDeleteI loved going to the library as a child--so many books, and I could take them home for free!--and I remember thinking my dd (also an avid reader from a very early age) would love them too.
ReplyDeleteUh, not so much. She hated that she'd fall in love with a book, and then have to give it back. She's always reread her favorites multiple times, and it was tough for her to wrap her mind around the concept of returning something she knew she'd want to revisit.
hi miss kelly! for me mom started reading to all of us when we were real little and she read lots of different kinds of stuff and taught us how cool books are. she said theres lots of power in words. so i didnt ever stop reading and me and my sister and my brother like going at the library and we got a time every weekend that everyone finds a nice place and reads a book. it a nice reminder of mom.
ReplyDelete...hugs from lenny
I didn't like reading until I was older. I hated it before, actually.
ReplyDeleteThe bookmobile got me started. One summer I read 100books and received a gold ribbon. That did it! I was hooked!
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ReplyDeleteI always loved reading..as far back as Dick and Jane. :) The library was (and still is) a special place for me as well. I grew up in small town America so our library was a bit less endowed then most:). However, my mother was a teacher and I would always snag books from her classroom library when I would sit in her classroom, waiting for her to finish up for the day.
ReplyDeleteMy mother read a lot when I was young so she was a good role model for me. Then cable TV came along and she ended up becoming a TV show fan and not much of a reader anymore.
It's funny because now I never watch TV and I am constantly pushing books at her. Love, love, love to read. It is the ultimate indulgence for me. Keeps my brain from turning to Mommy Mush. :)
i love reading, LOVE, and like you, need to get my reading fix in every day. i read at the very least right before bed.
ReplyDeletepretty much everyone in my family reads and i think that's when i fell in love with it. when i'd turn the corner and see my dad on the couch engrossed in a book. or when i'd sit on the bed next to my sister waiting for her to notice me. or when i'd walk into the kitchen and my mom was reading a recipe for that night's dinner. reading was always all around me. it's inevitable i'd become a reader too. good job, family!
Yes, yes, yes!
ReplyDeleteI have been reading since I was a preschooler. My mother taught me and I still remember sitting beside her, learning how to pronounce words and I am SO much older now.
I love everything about reading - connecting with characters, immersing myself in settings, imagining myself in the plot. I love the way a book feels in my hands, the way the pages smell, but I also love my Kindle.
Of my two boys, only one caught the bug and it began with Harry Potter. I read books 1-3 aloud to him and then, he was old enough to read the rest on his own. He STILL reads them, over and over, like I do.
Books are like old friends to me. Re-reading a great story is like a visit from one.
I couldn't tell you except I was a lone wolf as a child and books were my friends.
ReplyDeleteNo one ever read to me but I started writing and illustrating my own stories when I was very young.
My sisters like to read but my mother never read anything and neither does my son. Although I am forcing him to help me edit my novels...it's good for him. lol
Karla: I got my reading love from my Grandmother as well. And am so appreciative that kept me motivated to go the library. It was one of my most favorite spaces as a child.
ReplyDeleteLinda: I reread my favorites over and over again too. I can't part with the ones that imprint on my soul.
Lenny: Keep on reading because every book you read will leave an impression on you.
Candy: How ironic that you hated reading and now you want to write. I love that.
Michele: Bookmobiles are the bomb especially in rural areas where libraries may be in a shorter supply.
Hallie: I love that the cycle is being carried on and now you are passing it back to your mom. Go girl!
Abby: Me too, I can't go to bed at night unless I have read a chapter of something. And it doesn't matter what it is.
Patty: Great memories. And I agree there is something about holding a book in your hands. But I don't go anywhere without my kindle either.
Wildlypoetic: Lone wolfs are good. Besides you weren't really alone. How could you be? You had books. Read on!