You've Got Mail.. er Books!

“When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.” - Kathleen Kelly 

I believe that. I do.

While I cannot remember the first book I read, I remember my first library. When we moved from our farmhouse in Newfield to our “suburban” home in Oaklyn, I was introduced to not one, but two libraries: the Mary A. Finney Elementary School library and the Oaklyn Memorial Library.

At the school library, books were displayed on painted wooden shelves (mint green I might add). And those books had plastic covers and yellow cards in pockets for checkout purposes. The librarian would handpick which books would have the honor of being displayed. Naturally, those were the ones we read first.

By the time I was in sixth grade (Mr. Smith’s homeroom), I loved to read. I can’t attribute it to anything special – don’t remember ever seeing my parents read books, don’t remember bed time stories. I simply loved to read. It was an escape. On Tuesday nights (the only night the library was open late) my friend Debbie and I would walk to the library on warm summer evenings. We’d pour over the books and check out the limit which was something like six. By the middle of the week, we’d trade each other and the race was on to see who read the most books that summer. We read Nancy Drew which would explain my super sleuthing skills. We read the Bobbsey Twins and wished we had a twin brother. We read the Hardy Boys and decided we liked Nancy better. Heidi was a favorite as was the Brothers Grimm. Honestly, those fairy tales are frightening!

At home, I hid books and magazines around the house: One under the sofa cushions, one in the middle drawer of the hutch, one in the linen closet. You get the idea. I would read instead of doing chores and when I heard my mother coming, I’d hide the book and get back to dusting or sweeping. I think that’s when I fell in love with the Reader’s Digest. I could read those articles so fast – before she caught me.

In high school, I discovered Danielle Steel and Mary Higgins Clark. For a time, I devoured biographies like Amelia Earhart. When I got married, bride magazines and when I was pregnant, baby books. Then when I had children of my own, I discovered children’s books. A day didn’t go by when I didn’t read to them – I took Derek to story hour when he was three months old! I loved those books almost as much as my kids. Eric Carle, Tony DiPaolo, Junie B. Jones, and the Critter books to name a few.

Years have passed and college brought a different kind of reading – which is where I learned to read books I didn’t like. A book club has brought me more joy in reading for the past 13 years than I can imagine. A book club forces you to read books you might not have otherwise ever picked up. I have cried real tears over The Kite Runner and The Help. An unexpected bonus from all this reading is that I can read fairly quickly – ask my kids. Now, I work downtown and I've become one of those “T” readers. I find the selections of books in the early morning so fascinating: bodice ripping romance novels, scary sci-fi, popular best sellers, the newspaper, and of course the mandatory work related reading.

If it is true that a book becomes part of your identity as they say in “You’ve Got Mail”, who does that make me?