My first Literary Love

I realized that I probably needed a followup to my previous post. This is the first book that I absolutely treasured. I wonder sometimes if my animal rescue tendencies may spring from my love of this book. Now the first book I remember reading on my own was Alice in Wonderland at the age of four. No, I was no prodigy. Just bored. But it certainly started something. This was way before cable and the only cartoons were over by 8 in the morning and only on in the afternoon from 3-5. In our small small town, there were very few kids my age and my brother was mostly a squalling annoyance at that point. I was blessed by a grandmother who compulsively bought books for her grandchildren, especially Newberry Classics. Oh, and lots of ice cream too. FTW. My youngest and I spent a wonderful Friday night at the bookstore last week. I couldn't think of a better way to spend it. We also got ice cream of course :)

Read It Day

Today, in every single class, we get to spend the first 20 minutes reading. Knowing my kids, I grabbed a mighty armload of books this morning from the library for those students who were inevitably going to walk in w/o a book despite all the announcements and fanfare. I also found a gem for myself there. Ironically, it is about a discovered book. Here is an excerpt:

Once, in my Father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a place in our memory to which, sooner or later-no matter how many books we have read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget-we will return.