For Darcy, May your insatiable appetite for reading never dim. If you ever find yourself wondering what to read next, I recommend any and all of the titles included in this book. Well, except for page 7... those still scare me!

My first recollections of reading stem from shows like "Reading Rainbow" and "Sesame Street". These shows excited me as a child and I eagerly anticipated the worlds that could be opened and explored through a book.

Being the 5th of 6 children, everything I owned was a hand-me-down from one of my siblings. I remember distinctly that my mother signed me up for the scholastic book club and, for a time, I received brand new books that were just for me! This was an exciting time for me and I read these stories over and over again.

But it wasn't until I started thinking about this project that I realized the pressures of reading that also stick out from my youth. Unfinished summer library programs and incomplete assigned novels litter my school years and often left me with a feeling of having disappointed others, instead of being inspired and transported as I had been in the beginning.

The only "school reading" that I ever enjoyed was in the 8th grade. The teacher's face is clear as a bell, but her name has been lost to me. She encouraged us to find meaning in the words but did not berate us for not finishing. 

We read The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Fahrenheit 451. I didn't always understand what I was reading, but I could imagine the worlds being described and I could participate in the assignments because she asked us to respond to our feelings about the books. There were no right or wrong answers. Or at least that's how I remember it.

Assigned readings in high school like The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick continue to cause me to shudder. I am a slow reader because I want to understand each passage and I will re-read it until I do. Because there were passages in these books that were so difficult to understand, I struggled to keep up with the assignments and eventually gave up altogether. I'm not sure how I passed those tests, but probably read Cliffs Notes with a sense of guilt about "cheating".

Thankfully I was able to enjoy chosen books in high school like The Shining and Gone With the Wind. These books had no dreaded deadlines but were for pure entertainment.

I found two things in college that helped me discover my love of reading again. First, I was reading about history, which is a favorite topic. Second, I had a community to share and discuss the books. 

My high school teachers didn't really lead discussions. They lectured and gave tests to ensure that we had read. But college was a time, much like my 8th grade ELA class, to explore our perceptions of the literature.

Currently, reading incorporates all the best things I remember from my youth. 

I have choice, so I can read all the historical fiction and non-fiction that I desire! I often read books recommended by friends and have occasionally joined book clubs, so I can discuss and share what I have read. I have finally learned how to manage my time, so I can complete assigned readings on time without the guilt.