When I was young...

Me, high school age

...I wrote instead of listened when I was in class.  This was a common occurrence, particularly in high school.  Perhaps that is why I didn't get the grades I could have achieved in some of my classes.  I was frequent to daydreams and I encouraged it. 

...I read as many books on the Summer Reading list as I could.  I'm not sure if other countries have these, but in the United States, public schools release lists of recommended reading for each grade level during the summer months.  I'm not aware of ever finishing lists, but I was always insistent that I read as many as I could get my hands on.  I felt left out if I knew anyone who had read these and I had yet to.

Me in kindergarten

...I owned very few books.  In fact, I don't any books that I owned personally.  My family was rather large and for that reason, had little money to spend on frivolous things.  Books were considered as such, especially when we had such a wonderful library system in our community.  This is where I read as many books as I could.  My mother always got so upset with the amount of books my sister and I would try to check out and eventually gave us the limitation as only what we could carry (I recall one instance where my sister and I had filled an entire children's section table with stacks of books as tall as us).  It is still amazing how much strength we seemed to have when it came to the books we picked.  My sister and I would be laden with so many.  And yes, we did read most if not all of them in the two weeks time we had.  In fact, most of those books were read in the first two days we had them.

...the first book I remember buying was a Scholastic book, bought out of the newsprint ads they handed out in elementary school each quarter.  I was always so jealous of all the children whose parents had ordered mounds and mounds of books for them.  I was especially envious of the kids who hated books but their parents had ordered something for them anyhow.  When I begged my mother and she finally relented that one time, I picked out one of the cheapest books I could find: Flight 116 is Down by Caroline B. Cooney.  I still have that book, and I still read it from time to time.

Sleeping Me

...I used to pretend I could read before I actually could.  I would run my finger along the words at the speed I thought it would take to read them and I would make up stories to go along with the pictures.  There were a few times, when I actually learned their stories, that I preferred my stories to the actual ones. 

...I learned to love books because of my sister, Heidi.  I have a very early memory of my mother going out and telling Heidi to watch me.  She was reading, and I was playing on the floor.  She was so engrossed in the book that I wanted to know what was in this thing that made her have such an expression on her face.  She explained to me what a book was and what was inside it, and from there, I wanted to read.  I'm not sure how old I was, but I do know that I was too young to know how to read.  And I learned fairly early.  I was reading on my own at four years old.   

When I was younger than I am now, my boyfriend (now my husband) bought me all the Harry Potter books (well, all the ones that were published at the time) in hardback editions.  That is still one of the best gifts I have ever received in my lifetime.  It was my first birthday with him in my life, and the most memorable.  He was so excited, he made me open it in the parking lot in the dark right after he bought them for me.  It was still a week before my birthday, but he couldn't hold it in.

Adult Me

Since that day, he has been insistent that I own books and that I work on my library that I hope to one day have.  We are also building up my daughter's inventory of books. 

I honestly don't know where I came to the idea that I love to write and create my own stories.  Perhaps it's because I've been doing it for so long.  I do know where my love of books came from and for me, that is where it all began.  Learning to write and read was one and the same for me.

Where did you find your love for books?  Where did you discover your love and passion for writing?  Was it a particular book or instance?  Share your experience because that is what writing is all about.