My Childhood in Books

Having worked in a bookstore for a number of years, I can't help but remember Read Across America day every year. Since I was in charge of storytimes and book groups for children, I was in charge of making a big to-do of the date. Read Across America day is March 2,  made to coincide with be Dr. Seuss's birthday (that also happens to be my mother-in-law's birthday. It fits -- she's an avid book lover). Anyway, as it passed I couldn't help but think of the books that shaped me as a child.

I can recall my grade-school years in the context of what I was reading. I was a really shy girl and a huge bookworm, so it comes as no surprise that I can remember, often in detail, what I was reading at every age. Since I'm feeling all nostalgic, I thought I'd share my grade-by-grade favorite children's novels.

First Grade

As I've mentioned before, I kind of skipped over picture books once I knew how to read. By the time first grade started, I read my first children's novel, the classic Charlotte's Web.  I don't remember a ton about my first reading (the first of many readings) of the book, except being horrified like Fern when her dad gets the ax to kill the runty pig and loving the part about Wilbur getting a buttermilk bath. I also remember loving all the details -- what the family ate for breakfast on the farm, the detailed contents of Wilbur's slop, the descriptions of the barn.  As I've gotten older, I've grown to love the book even more. I read it to my son when he was only days old, with me getting all weepy over the beautiful prose as I nursed him. Read the last chapter of the book. It's possibly one of my favorite passages in literature. Seriously.

Somewhere Between First & Second Grade

No list would be complete without Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. I dream of writing an adapted screenplay based on the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books someday and having Tim Burton make the movie. Think about it. Pure awesomeness.

Second Grade

I discovered Beverly Cleary when I was in second grade. I read almost every single thing she's written. From the popular Ramona books to The Mouse and Motorcycle to the books about Henry Huggins, Ribsy, and Muggie Maggie. I couldn't get enough. When I was looking for a picture of Ramona for this post, I found the one at the right and I laughed out loud. All the memories came flooding back. The way Beverly Cleary portrayed childhood was so relatable. Her books are funny and tender at the same time. I'm waiting until Max starts school to introduce him to the Ramona books, in particular (we've read The Mouse and the Motorcycle already, though. To my delight, he loved it). I think he'll appreciate the situations Ramona finds herself in better once he's part of the whole school dynamic. Now I have to stop writing about Max starting school, because it's going to make me fall apart and start bawling. Okay....deep breath...moving on.

{Is it weird that as I go through all my favorites, I'm getting a little emotional? It could be due to the fact that I'm super-hormonal (only 17 days until my due date!), but I think it's because I connected so much to what I read and it reminds me almost better than anything what it was like when I was a kid. Or it could be that I'm still thinking about Max being in school...}

Third Grade

Laura Ingalls Wilder is on my list as one of my favorite authors, even with the many, many books I've read. A few months ago, as I was reading Little House in the Big Woods to Max at bedtime, I was loving every minute of it. I read all the books in the Little House series over and over starting in the third grade. I loved the way she told the simple stories, the detailed accounts of the day-to-day activities around the house. It totally fascinated me. The way she conveyed smells, tastes, sights, and sensations affected me profoundly as a reader and writer. I can remember trying to copy the way Mrs. Wilder used detail in my own writing at the time (Is it any surprise that as a child I was busy writing short stories and fantasizing about being an author when I grew up?).  Who am I kidding? I still find myself trying to do that! 

Somewhere Between Third & Fourth Grade

I can't exactly remember whether it was third or fourth grade, but that's when I discovered Roald Dahl. I could probably leave it at that and it'd be enough of an explanation. Like with Beverly Cleary and Laura Ingalls Wilder, once I discovered Roald Dahl, I read anything and everything of his that I could get my hands on. Without question, my favorite was Matilda. Except for the fact that I didn't have abusive parents and that I didn't attend a school that had a "chokey" in the basement, I felt like I could relate to the bookish, kind of lonely Matilda. It honestly isn't an exaggeration when I say I've read Matilda at least ten times. Max and I have read Roald Dahl for bedtime before -- I wonder if it's time to introduce him to Matilda yet.

Fourth Grade

I've always been a history geek. Seriously. For reasons I can't figure, my brothers and I are all this way.

Anyway, my obsession with historical fiction began officially in fourth grade when I read Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. I can remember reading it in the living room, in an ugly blue armchair, fascinated and confused at the time. My mom walked by as I was reading it and I can remember asking her what a Nazi was. What a question! I can't really recall her exact answer except that they were really bad people that did some really bad things to other people.  This book was so influential on my young mind because it was dramatic and even a little scary. After that, I was determined to write some kind of historical fiction. If I still had my old short stories, I'm sure I would laugh out loud at how blantanly I mimicked Number the Stars. That said, just about everything fiction I want to write is based in history. That book definitely got the ball rolling.

That said, I spent a lot of my fourth grade reading books by Judy Blume. I thought the Fudge books were possibly the funniest things I'd ever read.

Fifth Grade

Two books stand out: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  That was the year I got the teacher people actually wanted (somehow, every year of elementary school, I got the teacher people didn't want) and we read both of those books. My favorite of the two was definitely The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I still think it could make a great movie (yet another book I dream of writing a screenplay for).  It sounds silly now, when I was ten, these books felt like more 'grown-up' reading.

Once a bookworm, always a bookworm. To this day, I'm usually in the middle of three or four books at a time -- some of them fiction, a lot of them nonfiction.  But as much as I love the books I read as a teenager, the ones I read as an English major in college, and the ones I read as a full-fledged adult, I'm not sure if they've impacted me the way the books of my childhood did.  How grateful I am for the talented writers who shaped my budding years as a writer and a reader.

{What are your favorites?}