Happy Monday!
Yesterday, my youngest daughter texted me about a book she was reading. Most writers are prolific readers, but when you are working on a novel of your own, reading becomes difficult. It’s hard to turn the inner editor off. She was so happy, because for the first time in a while she sank into the book. It grabbed her and wouldn’t let go.
Sadly, the story didn’t end well, because I knew the book she was reading, and it does a stand on its ears at the end that completely ruins the whole thing. But that got me thinking about how wonderful it is to sink into a new book. There is nothing quite like it, is there?
My addiction to books began as an escape sometime in childhood. I don’t remember not being able to read. On the way to school, I would pass a children library, and at some point someone told me that I could go and get a library card and check out anything I wanted. Every couple of weeks I would show up at the library and select my stack of books. I brought a special bag just to load them all. They would let me take out 7 books at the time.
There was nothing like hauling that bag of books home. I still remember that feeling of anticipation and just simple happiness. I was 8 or 9, and that memory still makes me smile.
How did you start reading?
Mom and Dad were big on reading. I started very young and was surrounded by books and getting a new book was a treat. When I was 12-13, my tastes changed. As a teenager, I read Johanna Lindsey, Rebecca Brandywine and Dean Koontz. I used to get in trouble at school for reading in class. Reading is one of my joys!
Family story is that I got too impatient with the one chapter of Harry Potter my parents would read to me before bed time… As I had just started school I then learned reading a lot quicker than expected in order to finish the book myself. And that’s the story of how my parents never read Harry Potter 😀
I don’t remember when I started reading, or the specific age I got my library card. I just remember the feeling of elation and pride when I got it. I still have the old, mangled thing around here somewhere. Could never bring myself to throw it out.
First book I read was “My Golden Pony” and second book hooked me – “Old Yeller”. Been reading almost non-stop since. My current record is reading 634 days straight and still going strong.
My parents moved to Virgin Gorda in the Virgin Islands during my middle school years and there was no cable. We only had one vhs tape of the movie ‘scream’. I was so bored I turned to books and the first one I picked up was “The Meg”by Steve Alten. I loved it, been addicted ever since. It probably also wasn’t the best book to read while living on a tiny island lol.
I’ve loved books and reading all of my life. One of the earliest pictures I have of myself was sitting on my grandmother’s couch with a sales circular in my lap, trying to read it. I was two years old. I read nearly everything my mother read-her tastes were romance and true crime. (Helter Skelter was not a good read for an 11 year old, but it was a big book!) I was a library addict , and like many of you, read everything in our elementary school library. I read every word on the cereal boxes in the morning. By sixth grade, I was reading at college level. My tastes ran to SF when I found Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, and fantasy followed shortly thereafter. I worked in a bookstore, and it was the best job ever. I loved the books and the customers, and I still miss that job!
That was me as a kid! Have been a voracious reader as long as I can remember. Used to devour books. In fact, my mother once said, she never had to worry about me during the Summer Holidays, as I used to curl up in a corner and read my Life away! Still the same. I do not possess a TV! All I need is books.
OMG! I felt the same way about the library & did the same thing. I could escape & live other lives in books. I started reading when I was 4 years old. I was motivated by nosiness. I didn’t like not knowing what the adults were spelling around me & I didn’t like feeling left out. I also attended Montessori school at that age so between school & my parents & being nosey, my love of books was born. Reading books under the covers with a flash light after bedtime was a normal childhood behavior for me.
I had too much “boisterous imagination” as my aunt had called it. I was always climbing trees, sword fighting my cousin (Sorry rory) and encountering dragons in the garden. My aunt gave me Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials when I was about 10/11 and said it would be an adventure but on a page…then bam…I became a reader 😅
One of my earliest memories of reading is from around 4-5 years old; I was sick and was reading an illustrated edition of Treasure Island in bed to comfort myself.
Also, my mother used to read The Lord of the Rings to my sister and me at bedtime when we were young. Since she worked full time, she was tired and only read a few pages each night; at some point I got impatient and wanted to read ahead 🙂
After that, I read practically everything I could get my hands on, but I still love scifi/fantasy the most.
My parents were big readers and I learned to read in kindergarten. My mother took us to the library faithfully and everyone brought home books. I would get in trouble at school because I was reading books too “hard” for my grade level. It didn’t matter, it opened up a new world.
In 4th grade I was a slow reader.
At the suggestion of my teacher, my Mom took me to a bookstore and we picked out a book called The Happy Hollisters, it was the first book in a mystery series, and I haven’t stopped reading since. I love books, in fictional genres, and I thank that teacher who pushed me in the right direction! In that one summer I went through the series The Hollisters, to Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, and Anne of Green Gables, Margaret Sutton, Zane Grey… and I’ve never stopped reading. Many thanks to all authors with their fertile imaginations!
I can’t remember not being an avid reader. My mom read allot, and she would take all 4 of us to the Library on Saturday to return books and get new ones. As a child of the 60s and 70s, there were allot of generic books for kids. However, when I hit 15 and got my first job, I used to buy the discount historical romance novels at the store every payday and read whenever I was not doing something else. Then I took “College Bound Reading” my junior year of high school and my world opened up. It never stopped.
14 years old and case of Mononucleosis started my affair with books. 3 days into my confinement to bed,I was bored and whining. My mother brought me a sandwhich and a pile of books from a local free book exchange at the laundromat. I picked the biggest one from the pile, Rich man, Poor man by Irwin Shaw. I started reading and didnt stop. I streched that illness as long as I could and read the whole book in a week. Then I started on the rest until I got to my first Harliquin Romance, the affair was sealed with that outback hottie and his housekeeper.
My book love affair began around 5 grade. I think it was Beverly Clearly’s Fifteen. I’ve been an avid reader ever since. I even remember my mom taking my books as a punishment because reading was my favorite thing to do. Now, as an adult it is my favorite escape. I’ve even gotten 2 book related tattoos.
My love of reading began before I could read in southern Appalachian western NC. Wenlived with extended family, and my great aunts and uncles were always telling and reading stories. I remember telling Mom how disappointed I was on my very first day of school because the teacher hadn’t taught me how to read. It didn’t take long, and the first book I fell in love with was a Superman comic. (Still proudly own that fetish 😉 My love of sci-fi and fantasy stems from there and continues to this day. Falling into a new book, finding an author you can’t wait to devour…escapism doesn’t get ANY better than that!
Luckily my parents were forward thinking. I grew up with a home full of books and was introduced to the library before kindergarten. My mother used to laugh and say I was born with a library card. She had to make extra trips – twice and sometimes three times a week to allow me to return books and get another armload full because they only allowed me to take seven at a time.
My husband admits that originally he was a little surprised at how much I set aside in my budget for book purchases. To me it was right beside food, electricity and rent. I simply do not understand people who do not READ, not just for knowledge but for sheer entertainment and joy…. even though one of them is my brother.
Mom read to me from the beginning. We went to the library regularly. I always loved books. In 3rd grade, the librarian at school told me I could only check out 2 books/week. I told her I’d finish them before a week. She said if I brought them back before the week was out, she’d let me have more. I brought them both back the next day. She quizzed me on them – thinking I hadn’t read them. I had. She gave up and let me check out however many I wanted. Now my bookshelves are all full and my kindle has over 5000 books.
I learned to read at an early age, before I was five. Our dad would read to us every evening. We’d all crawl into one of our beds and he would read a chapter or two from a book. I still read a great deal.
I just wanted to add that in elementary school I set my bed on fire because I was reading. My night light attachment was broken so I set it on the mattress and was reading for hours . It was a very good adventure and why was I going to stop ? My sibling in our room ran screaming to wake up the parents while I continued to read …..the bed was just smoking – it was not in flames until my dad actually got to our room. He threw the bed out on the front lawn and called the fire dept. I don’t remember the book but I finished it.
I don’t know when I started reading, I do know that I started reading my parents books in the second grade. They never censored. In the sixth grade I discovered the library. I would take the bus to downtown Dallas and the main public library and fill a large paper grocery bag with books. I would then take them back on the bus and sometimes walk a couple of miles with the books, stopping along the way when I got tired to read for a while.
One time the check out person at the library asked me what I was going to with all of those books and I looked at her in surprise and said very seriously that I was going to read them. On weeks ends I would go thru about 7 or 8.
I started my love affair with reading quite young. I never played with Barbies, I played with horse figurines! 😁 I started with My Friend Flicka and then into Black Beauty and the Black Stallion books. I read them all. I then read found fantasy with animals…McCaffrey and Lackey. At some point I found Asimov, Heinlein, Norton and Herbert and never looked back. The worlds these writers created was so amazing, while my wasn’t…so amazing. As I got older I looked for something with romance in it, too. So here I am!
My mother was a big reader and I wanted to know what was in the books she read so my sister taught me to read before I entered school. Probably it was a way to make me quite as I was quite the talker when I was little. We were poor for most of my life but getting my stack of books from the library made me feel so rich!
My mother would read to me every night. Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Black Beauty, Call of the Wild, All Creatures Great and Small, pretty much anything with animals. Then as I got older she had me read a chapter then she’d read a chapter. Then I would read to her. Then I started reading on my own. I can still remember my first romance novel and it was straight romance. Caroline was the title and I have no idea who the author was. Then I got into Barbara Cartland, then Harlequin Romances. I was a subscriber of those for years. Was a huge fan of Suzanne Brockmann and her Seal Teams and Kristen Ashleys’ Rock Chicks. I started with Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy with a free story I stumbled on by Shayla Blacks. Doomsday Brethren and I still haven’t forgiven her for never finishing the series and with the exception of Rock Chick books I haven’t read another romance book since then. There was a comment by JR Ward in a Doomsday Brethren book so I started with her Black Dagger Brotherhood. I was looking for new authors as these guys are just too “in your face sex” for me. I don’t mind sex in a book but I really don’t need two pages describing a guy’s parts and half the chapter of explicit doing the deed. Someone recommended a website that had an “if you like this author, try these” and Ilona Andrews and Shelly Laurensten were listed. I’ve never looked back. I still buy any new Shelly books and I do a reread of those every few years. I’ve done 5 KD rereads since Sept. of last year and I’m just finishing up Hidden Legacy then I’m heading back to KD. My other favorites is JD Robb and the In Deat series. That will be my next read after I do KD again. And that is my history of reading.
My father was an avid reader when I was growing up, and I picked up the habit and never put it down. We read so much that my mother got jealous of the books. 😂
Carrie-
were a house of readers, but in my house it was my mom who was the machine. when I saw the movie ‘Short Circuit’ where the robot is devouring books saying ‘need input’, that was my mom.
She would take out the max books from the library , I think it was 7 fiction, 7 non fiction, and would be back again next week. I realized as an adult that was her escape, she was one of the most intelligent people I have ran into, I mean brilliant , and it wasn’t a happy life ( she graduated high school at like 14 in NYC in the early 40s, finished 90 credits of electrical engineering in a year& a half , and then basically had an emotional break she never really recovered from).
Given a chance she could talk about anything at a level ppl knowledgeable about the area would be impressed. I am glad books were there for her, as they are often for other people facing things in life:)
My reading started when I was about 7 years old. It was an escape from the bullying in school. My dad had a stroke when I was 5 and he started taking me and my sister to the library as a cheap way to keep two young kids entertained. My limit was 1, then 3 then 10 books. I remember packing a suit case full of books when my parents sent me to my grandparents house for 2 weeks one summer. I wasn’t sure which books I would want to read next.
In second grade, my Catholic school scheduled weekly library time, and we were allowed to browse at will. I found a Nancy Drew book and devoured it in no time, and from that point on was never without a book to read. I even got in trouble for reading during recess instead of playing with the other children — “It’s antisocial, dear!” the nuns told me. That failed to dissuade me, and of course I later learned by way of my habit that I wasn’t being *antisocial*, I was/am an *introvert* 🙂
My parents always read to my sister and myself, and I still love Go Dog Go and the Crows of Pearblossom (A. Huxley). I still remember the first word I officially learned to read – look, in the 1st grade. That was it – I was hooked and have never stopped reading.
At fourteen I was in high school in Scotland and the books we had to read for English were Shakespeare and Chaucer. They didn’t do it for me. Then we had to read To Kill a Mockingbird and I was hooked, I remember staying up until 2 am as I couldn’t stop. I’ve been an avid reader since then.
I grew up in a house of readers, so there were books at home and regular trips to the big county library near our house. I do remember learning to read, first they used a phonetic alphabet called ITA ( I suspect it was a varient of the IPA, international phonetic alphabet), there were books written in it, then switching to regular alphabet in 2nd grade. I remember sounding out street signs and learning ‘knolls’ isn’t ‘ke- nolls’ lol.
Besides getting a library card, one thing I remember distinctly was picking up a copy of Herman Wouk’s ‘The Caine Mutiny’ and trying to read it..it probably weighed as much as I did ! all my parents said was I wouldn’t understand large parts of it, and they were right, but that little pip squeak said ‘,that’s okay, I will understand more the next time I read it’..and over the years I did , picking up more and more over the years. It taught me something about books, that when you read books they can exist on many levels, that can change how you look at it over time.
My reading then as now was eclectic, I loved science fiction, both novels and short stories,.and would read anthologies of SF short stories, yet I also fell in love with Charlotte’s Web , don’t know how many times I read it and cried at the end. ( that’s okay, as an adult my wife and I saw ‘The Snowman’ animated movie and bawled our eyes out at the end).
It took me places I couldn’t go, made me think, and also took away ,especially when I hit my teens, the loneliness I often felt, bc I could read books where I could see myself in that world.
It is funny, maybe because I only write for my own enjoyment,when I read a book I can get lost in it. The only thing my amateur writer’s side brings out is appreciating how an author weaves the web they do, and marvel how they keep their universe straight.
Actually, the only critical eye I ever had was in the Hidden Legacy series where Alessandro uses his Alfa to jump a huge gap in the road and lands in one piece, which anyone who has ever owned an Alfa would laugh at ( it would look like the Blues Brother mobile when it gets to the Dailey building an expires).
There are pictures of a toddler me holding a book. When I started school, students didn’t learn to read until they were in first grade. I do remember going from not reading to reading everything in sight. I found that I hated to read out loud as I had to slow down.
I remember when I was very small, my Dad would read to my brothers, sisters, and I every night before bed. He used different silly voices for each character…it was so much fun!
I also remember looking forward to 14 hour car trips every summer to visit family in another state. My parents always packed a big bag of brand new books for each of us, and we weren’t allowed to look at them until we were in the car. It was glorious!
The first books I remember reading (other than Dr. Seuss) are The Little Prince (Antoine d’Saint Exupery) and Tolkien’s trilogy. I wanted to give the little Prince hugs and tell him his flower would be okay, and I wanted to join the hobbits on their magnificent adventure!
Books have remained my best friends, my endless golden ticket when I need a trip elsewhere, and one of my greatest joys in life. Many, many, many thanks to HA for all of their lovely gifts to the BDH, helping to feed our very ravenous (and appreciative) reading appetites! 🥰💕💕💕💕
Oh, how I understand you. I learned to read in Grade 1 and from that moment on any book I could get my hands on, I read it. I managed to read every single book in the school library and since my dad also had many books, I read them too. Seeing my interest, my dad bought me several encyclopaedias which I read so many times that I memorized them. You can imagine that I aced everything in school. By the time I was in Grade three, when the teacher would tell us something that wasn’t correct, I’d raise my hand and say “Miss that’s not the way it is” and I would correct her. The first time she didn’t take it too well so I went home, brought an encyclopaedia with me and showed her how she was mistaken. By the end of the year any time she’d open her mouth she’s check me out to see if I approved of what she was saying.
I read on family car vacations, instead of listening to my annoying brother and mother describe the scenery. Nothing better than getting lost in someone else’s adventure! Told my mom all her fault as she always gave me a book in the car! I don’t remember a time of not loving to read. My oldest daughter is a librarian(Media something or another) but she still loves the smell and feel of a book like I do! Side note…..
Kansas City Public Library. As noted on that site, these 25-foot-high representations of 22 different books (set between glass-enclosed stairwells made to look like bookends) are known as the “Community Bookshelf” and do indeed line one wall of Central Library’s parking garage in downtown Kansas City. I could not post the picture but check it out!
I have no idea when I started reading and I do not hail from a family of book lovers (my father would fall asleep after trying to read one page). All I know is that I have always loved reading. I remember reading with a flashlight under the covers after my parents would put me to sleep. I loved being pulled into another world and I was the kid that could be in a noisy, crowded room and still read. The school librarians were my best friends and would put aside new books for me. I now live in a house filled with books and am happily married to a fellow book lover.
I couldn’t read or write going into kindergarten. Many of the kids could read even at the start. They had all gone to preschool. I wasn’t able to because we couldn’t afford it and my mom didn’t try teaching me to read because she thought that would be the school’s job when I was old enough to go. I hated not being able to read. I worked incredibly hard at learning. By 2nd grade I was reading white dragon of pern, and the lord of the ring’s series. I remember going to the library and asking if I could get a book that wasn’t in the kid’s section. The librarian said it was fine but that I would probably prefer the books in the kid’s section. When I picked the white dragon, she tried so so many times to talk me out of it, but I told her I would have it finished before I had to return it. I did finish it. It took me the entire month to do it, but I did, and I never went back to the kids’ section again after that. I definitely read to escape my childhood was not good for many reasons.
I too do not remember a time when I did not read. I think my father helped me learn to read by reading the paper to me and I took off running from there. I once had to prove to a librarian that I was capable of reading and understanding a book she thought was above my grade level. I read her selected passage and told her what it said. She let me have the book and never questioned me again. Summer was the best when I could check out a stack, read them in a few days and go back and check out more. Reading has always been my “happy place” and my escape when my anxiety peaked or things got too much to handle.
I grew up reading and my fondest memory is of going t0o the library with my Mother, when I was a teenager. She liked mysteries and at the time, I liked Westerns. We would swap books. Thank you so very much for bringing back that memory.
My first 2 books I owned were the Three Bears and the Little Engine that Could. I would have people read those to me all the time. In time, I knew the story so well that I was reading the books to people. I was reading by the time I was 4 to 4 1/2.
When I was in high school, my mother got some film developed and she handed me a picture and said this was why she hated me reading when I was supposed to help with housework. I was engrossed in a book and I never knew she took that picture. LOL My mother was as bad about reading; it’s probably where I got my addiction.
I think that is why I became a Librarian. I want to help other people find their escape the way I found mine.
I received a Bobbsey Twins book for my sixth or seventh birthday, fell in love with reading and never stopped.
My 1st book after One Fish, Two Fish ect.. was Tarzan of the Apes & When Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. I was hooked. I was in 3rd grade. My Mom would pick up books at the 2nd hand store. I still read at least 2 books a week. Dune was my first fantsy book. Love to read, even read cookbooks! Finding a new series or the next in a series I like, is better then Christmas!
My older brother always read the comics page of the newspaper spread out on the floor. I learned to read upside down from the other side of the paper because he didn’t like anybody reading over his shoulder. I read everything I could get my hands on. But my very first introduction to sf was The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree. Talk about opening a door! My favorite children’s sf was The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key. So much so, I still have a copy of it to this day!
I am still a prolific reader of all genres, although fantasy/sf is still my go-to on any random day.
I feel for the commenter above who had to downsize her collection; the biggest challenge of our marriage came BEFORE our wedding day, when I had to donate about 1000 books to make room for his collection! That we are still together almost 32 years later is a blessing I appreciate every day. But it couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t bit the bullet and cycled through my books. In fact, though, that taught me an important lesson about sharing the love (of books) rather than staying a complete hoarder, which I had been up to that point.
I can’t remember when I couldn’t read. My Father & Grandmother would read to me every day. I know I was 4 when I would select my own book & read. My Dad had a very large selection of books from childhood to adult. Drove my Mom (a non reader) nuts. Was way ahead of my freinds in school. My Dad had to sign off at the local library that I was NOT to be restricted to the childrens picture book section (very boring books, at least to me) same at school. I’ve cut back in recent years & donated a lot of my 80 years of collecting. Still have about 9000 books left & 918 books on my E reader, so it’s not too bad being housebound. TG you can now borrow library books in E format.
Happy reading EV1
Ilona can’t wait for your next book. Any chance of another Kinsmen book or short story??
Hugs & prayers
Kathy
Unfortunately, books were not a thing when I was growing up. I got the reading bug the summer I was 16. I was staying with my cousin and no one was home and I was bored. I checked out the books at his desk; all science textbooks (biochem major) except for Heinlein’s Stranger in the Strange Land. Oh, my! I started reading sci fi, then read a fantasy (McCaffrey Dragonbooks)… then branched out over the years to thrillers, romance of all flavors, biographies, histories… really anything that catches my fancy. I started later in life, but have made up for it in the sheer number of books read… I still read 4 to 5 books a week! And I’m closer to 70 now than is comfortable!
Reading was a escape from childhood sexual abuse that allowed me to escape the memories and to fantasy about different worlds. The abuse was not in my family but a husband of my mother’s friend. At 8 years old, I could escape to the library and then to books I found there. Books are still my escape from stressors. I read everything and enjoy many different jardons and authors. Hope everybody out there have a good day and year
I could read early, and I remember going to the library, but my love of books began in the fourth grade when I broke my leg. So I wouldn’t be bored, my mom brought home three books and I remember them all. One of them was the first three Nancy Drew books combined. I was hooked. I started my first novel at 12, about a girl named Marianne and her two best friends (I had two best friends like Nancy Drew), who solved mysteries. I never finished it, but the punctuation was perfect. I’m now a copy editor.
I got started with reading very young too, and have been a regular and proud library user my entire life.
In first grade, I began stuttering. I had a weekly in-school speech therapy session, but I didn’t willingly talk as much anymore because of the challenges I was having. Also at that time my father began an at-home program with me, focused on reading and comprehension, and speed-reading. I remember spending a lot of time with him, and it was so enjoyable — we both loved reading. At some point, my stuttering almost disappeared but I am aware even today that I utilize every day some of the speech techniques I learned as a child to avoid stuttering.
I read a lot as a child, child/young adult fiction, but biographies and Boy’s Life and National Geographic and Reader’s Digest too, all the Agatha Christies and Erle Stanley Gardners, even Barbara Cartland and regency romances — really, anything that was around that wasn’t too grown-up for my taste. (My folks allowed me freedom to read). I was responsible for our family library, and I would organize it and reshelve things — we had 100s of books 🙂 Still, going to the library as a child was a priority for me, and luckily also for my parents — I could ride my bike to the local (small) library but to get to the larger library someone would have to drive me. There was an ice cream shop near by, so it was doubly lovely errand to run.
As an adult, I continue to read regularly/daily; reading is interwoven in my life. I bookmark upcoming releases, regularly read about new books and seek out new authors and reread favorite books. There’s nothing like finding an author new to me, that I love.
Coincidentally (ha!), I married into a family of book-lovers. My husband’s father, and mine, were the kind of men who always carried a paperback with them wherever they went. Love this memory!
My superpower is reading — thanks, Pop!
I don’t remember when I started reading – I remember being read to, having my own books. I do remember my first visits to the library. The dizzying wonder of a building filled with BOOKS! Happy, Happy day!! Getting a library card and finding out I could get 30 books at a time; bring them back AND Get More!! (sigh) I read all the books in my elementary school library. Favorite places to read – up a pecan tree at my grandparents farm, a lawn chair in my back yard or in our living room with my parents while music played on the stereo.
Before I could read I would “read the pictures” to my younger sister. We were probably 3 and 2. I would go through a children’s picture book and make up stories. My stories must have been captivating because my sister hit me on the head with a hard plastic toy once when I refused. Blood was shed. Later, in elementary school I read everything in the children’s section of our local public library. I began recommending books to the librarians. I moved on to the main library downtown always checking out the maximum number of books. Books were my friends, my love, my religion. I would mourn the end of a good book. The Narnia Chronicles C.S. Lewis. The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. The Velveteen Rabbit. Anne McCaffrey’s dragon books. The Queen’s Blessing and To Kill a King by Madeleine Pollard. As a teen I read Tolkien but also romance and sci-fi and mysteries. My appetite for experiencing books was demanding. Books made me fall in love, be on the right side against evil, fight battles, travel the world, the universe, and time. My husband will sometimes find me crying over a book. The loss is so real. Or laughing which is wonderful and delicious. My siblings all read. We recommend books and delight when there is a series because the story continues and we can live in that world longer. I introduced them to your books and they are lapping them up but savoring too. We all get excited to find a new book.
I started reading out of the telephone book! It used to have a lot of adds and logos in it. I would help my gma look up numbers because English was her second language and I had “young” eyes so I could read the print more easily. I carried that thing around and would play work or school while everyone else besides my gma or I was at work or school. When I started kindergarten we had a school library that we got to visit once a week with our class or any recess.