To say I love a good book would be an understatement.
I have rarely in my life, at least as far back as my pre-teen years, been without a book. I am even reluctant to finish a book unless I have another one on hand to start.
I admit there is a part of my brain that feels a bit disconnected when I am not in the middle of a book. It’s a feeling I get, like I’ve forgotten something but can’t quite put my finger on just what it is I’ve lost. My over active imagination needs a book to focus on or it begins to find it’s own amusement which always lands me in trouble, more so when I was a kid, but even now as an adult.
By means of full disclosure, I should be up front and say I am the chairman of the Picture Butte Municipal Library Board so it would make sense that I am interested in promoting reading. Trust me, even if I had nothing what-so-ever to do with the library I would still be championing the cause of reading. In fact bookshelves in my home out number all other pieces of furniture combined.
I learned to love reading at a very young age. I credit my mother and her mother for fostering a love of the written word in me. It was one of the only things I can really credit my grandmother for having passed on to me, well that and thick ankles, thanks gran.
That’s not to say my dad wasn’t an avid reader but not to the same extent as my maternal influences. Having said that I guess my paternal grandfather was also a good example of a reader, he had the entire Louis L’Amour collection of western titles, I finished them all before I was a junior in high school.
My selection of reading material comes from every corner of the library. I love a well written biography, on a life well lived, just as much as the latest best selling suspense novel. I adore the children’s section of the library and even have my own collection of children’s books, even though I have no children. It helps that I am aunt to 17 nieces and nephews but that’s really just an excuse, I’d still collect children’s books even if I never had children in my home.
I realized just how deep my love of reading was anchored in my soul when a book, gifted to me at Christmas about a decade ago by my mother, actually brought me to tears. They were happy, joyful tears but I admit, I cried over a book.
In my defense it wasn’t just any book. It was my blue book, both literally and figuratively. My mother’s copy of the book was actually blue in colour but it was also the book I turned to when I was home sick with any number of childhood illnesses, from mumps to chicken pox, or whenever I need to escape reality for just a little while and get lost in a story.
The book was called the Little White Horse and my mother had received it as a child from her grandmother in England. My mother, realizing how much the book meant to me even as an adult, actually paid a book finder in England to track down a copy of the book, which had long since been out of print. Fast forward a decade or so and it turns out the popularity of the Harry Potter series, written by J.K. Rowlings also fostered renewed interest in the book. It was Rowlings’ favourite book as a child and due to her success as a writer the book garnered new fans and even led to a movie based on the book.
This Christmas I decided to return the favour and ordered the movie from England to give to my mom for Christmas. You can image the laughter that erupted when we opened our presents from each other and found we had each gotten the other the same movie. It turns out great minds do think alike and a good story is timeless.