Daughter of a Librarian

I literally grew up in a library. 

I am the daughter of a librarian and an elementary school teacher. Books were surrounding me at all times. There was no way I would not end up loving to read. I even once spent the night in the library (the power was out on our side of town due to a massive snow storm so we stayed in the warm library). A lot of my childhood memories revolve around my town's public library--singing at the top of my lungs over the intercom after hours, carrying a stack of books as tall as me back to my mom's office for her to buy me from book fairs, reading in the wooden train cars in the children's section, playing with the date due stamp, taking over the employee break room with VHS tapes and a roll away TV...even my Girl Scout meetings and summer sign language classes were held in the library! It was my second home. I've been up and down these rows of books thousands of times, perused the shelves countless times, and fell in love with the written word.

My favorite book when I was very little was Martha's House, a "First Little Golden Book" that belonged to my grandmother, who's name was also Martha. It resided behind the glass of her book case in her living room for as long as I can remember. It was published in 1982 and the printed price on the cover reads 69¢. It's a very simple book aimed at toddlers, following the little girl Martha and her puppy through the different rooms of her home, from the front hall where she hangs her coat, to the laundry room where she helps fold the clean clothes, the bathroom where she draws on the steamy mirror after a hot shower, and the garage where she keeps her tricycle. 

My grandmother lived about 250 miles away from me and we would see her maybe 2 or 3 times a year. As I visited her when I was older, I would see this book sitting in her bookcase and smile thinking about all the memories that the real Martha's house held. I came to realize that the rooms described in the book were the same as the rooms in my grandmother's house, just with slightly different memories--the kitchen where I would watch the food cook through the window in the stove door, the living room where my grandmother would play ragtime music on the piano, the backyard with the basketball hoop attached to the garage, the front room where we would take off our shoes and coats. It was familiar.

That tiny little toddler book meant more to me than I realized it did. It was really the only thing that I was very adamant about keeping from my grandmother's house after she passed away. That little book made the 1500 mile journey out to college with me and now resides in its new place of honor on my own bookshelf.

It is almost impossible to name my favorite book now. So I'll list a few that make the top of the list. 

First, Heat Rises by Richard Castle (third in the Nikki Heat series). 

Yes, this is a book written by a fictional person portrayed by Nathan Fillion in the ABC crime drama Castle. It's incredibly meta. But I am a big sucker for crime and a big sucker for TV tie-ins! 

Next, Across The Universe by Beth Revis. 

I end up reading a lot of Young Adult fiction because of my roommate, Jessi. She is studying to become a Young Adult author and dragged me to the Provo Library last year, directly to the YA section and then directly to get my own library card (which i TOTALLY recommend). We usually find ourselves perusing the YA section most of the time. Across The Universe is the first in the series and is based in a future sci-fi type world where people have been cryogenicly frozen, placed on a ship named Godspeed, to later inhabit a new planet called Centauri-Earth. There's suspense, murder, outerspace, and romance. It's excellent!

Third, Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

 

I did a book report on this book for my Adolescent Development class last semester and fell in love with it. "Love" is a good word to describe this book because it is based on a future society that has deemed love to be a disease and have come up with a cure to save citizens from the awful disease that leads to "death." But right before Lena is supposed to receive the cure on her 18th birthday, she meets Alex, who teaches her that love is not such a bad thing, it's a great thing in fact. 

Finally (for this list anyway), the Harry Potter series.

Now I'm WAYY behind the times with this one. Don't kill me, but I have yet to actually finish reading this series. The first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was always like the 1 Nephi 1 of the series. I read that first chapter soooooo many times. I think my first mistake was to start reading the book after the first movie came out, so all the description of characters at the beginning was incredibly boring to me...so I started reading the series again last summer. I got half way through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before school started up and I had to put it aside in favor of boring textbooks. But once I graduate in April, the series is at the top of my list to finish right away. I have seen all the movies and have yet to be completely disappointed in the movies portrayal of the books that I have read so far. We just read an article in my Media class about using the Harry Potter series in therapy. I think this is GENIUS! "Bibliotherapy" makes total sense! My favorite line of the article pretty much summed up how I feel about books and what they do for readers. 

"The Harry Potter books have a wonderful capacity to draw us in through the power
of our imagination. Then, paradoxically, just as we think we have escaped from the world, they help us to find the power to live in it. The places and characters we imagine sustain
us as we struggle with places and people who trouble us, including ourselves."  

Books are important to me. Always have been. My second home was that library. I will forever be grateful to be the daughter of a librarian.