Caught in the Web of Literature, Or How I Came to Read (Part 1)

My first encounter with literature occurred when my parents read me bedtime stories at night before I went to sleep. One of my earliest memories is of the sound of my mother’s voice as she read the books aloud to me placing emphasis on dialog and inflection on important words. I truly enjoyed listening to my parents read to me, mostly because I liked imagining the stories before I fell asleep. The next day I would continue the stories I had imagined the night before in my daily games of imagination. I was often a princess, though I enjoyed being the type that was in disguise, hiding from the evil monster, endeavoring to save the kingdom. I usually did.

 However, there came the day when my parents decided that I should learn how to read before I entered first grade. I asked them, whatever for? I could easily understand the road signs of stop, yield, and merge, what need had I for reading? But my parents persisted. My dad created a book of words for me to study. The horrid thing was blue with pages and pages of typed words. It was the most boring book in the whole entire world. The rule was that if I agreed to read one page of the words I would be allowed to listen to a bedtime story. Now the great delight of my evening was blocked by a menace so obnoxious to my young self that I went so far as a to throw temper tantrums to stave off the impending torture. I realize now that my parents did this in love, but at the time, I swear I was tortured. And I wasn’t allowed to guess at the words. I had to read all of them, or learn them that night before I was freed to the joys of stories.

Eventually I mastered the skill of reading well enough that the blue books were left behind. I could read, and bluff my way through troublesome words so well, that future reading, such as before bedtime was left up to me. Sometimes my parents would present me with books I enjoyed reading such as Little House on the Prairie, which my dad read with me because he said it was “a little above my reading level.”  He would tuck me under the covers of my pink quilted blanket and sit on the edge of the bed. Often, my grandparents contributed books to my burgeoning library. Spoiling a little intellectual girl meant books such as The Twelve Dancing Princesses, requite with beautiful, colored pictures of dress and slippers.

Reading books as a child, I often read the book once, and moved on to another book—adventure, story, place to escape to—as quickly as I possibly could. I never wanted to read things twice and read as fast as I could. My parents often scolded me for skipping over words and names I didn’t know, refusing to stop and sound them out. But I didn’t mind, my purpose was to gather all of the stories in my head so I could use them to create my own stories in their worlds.