I grew up reading. I grew up surrounded by books knowing there was a vast well of knowledge out there that I would only ever be able to dip my toe into. For some kids I imagine this would be daunting and overwhelming, for me? I was hooked. I found my addiction early in life.
My earliest memory of reading was actually prodded out of me not very long ago when I ran across a young girl at the Farmington library, probably seven or eight and she had a Scholastic Books order form. She was showing it off to me proudly and with a sense of anticipation. Holy cow did her face of excitement, the sound and feel of that order form bring back some memories! As a family of seven on a pastor’s salary we didn’t have a lot of disposable income, but my parents always found enough to let me and Haddi pick at least one if not two books from those Scholastic “catalogs.” I am 100% sure I had the same face of that young girl every time and I still remember the joy I had every time those books came in…brand new, shiny and something I had chosen.
Yep, I was hooked and even in elementary school I had the makings of a bibliophile. Though in those early years I didn’t always get to buy books and for that I had the Burlington Public Library! It was my mecca, my cherished space as a child and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to really peruse the upstairs stacks where all the “adult” went with their glass floors and tiny twirling medal staircases. I LOVED that place and it was worth the mile or so walk in the hot summer mornings to get there! The summer reading programs were my first foray into a Book War I guess and apparently Haddi and I never outgrew them.
The Burlington Library had such an influence on my life from the story times as a little kid, to the reading programs as I grew into an independent reader, to the annual summer book sales where I bought my first Harlequin Romance novel that library, that oasis of books and knowledge, that building with all its character, old wooden library tables and distinct architecture shaped the kind of reader, the kind of informed human I was becoming…
Then…in seventh grade…we moved…