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Now I read whatever I want to read. The last book I read was called The Barefoot Queen about the expulsion of the gypsies from Spain in the 15th Century. It was an obscure find, yet featured the strongest female characters yet. And the book I'm reading is an Amish romance called An Empty Cup. I've found people are interested in how interested you are in your own taste of books. There are plenty of great books I could speak volumes about, but spatially could not weave into this narrative. Who am I as a reader? I am voracious. I am curious. I am adventurous. And I am ready to pass all this along to the next generation.

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I was well into high school when my mother invited me to join her summer book club. I went on a whim, and the book they decided to read for that summer was A Tale of Two Cities. I was so impressed with their dialogue and insight, I picked up a copy and read along with them. If pop candy dribble escorted me out of the wonderful world of literature, Charles Dickens was the gentleman who escorted me back in. After I shed the last of my tears over Charles Darnay's selfless death, I picked up Little Dorrit, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, which led me back to the books I wanted to be reading. Though he lost me at Pickwick Papers, Dickens did me a great service. I'll always admire the complexity of his characters and his willingness to portray the grimy side of British literature.

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That's the thing about reading books for other people: you stop wanting to read. During the years in which I transitioned from junior high to high school, the most reading I did was skim the monthly issue of Teen Vogue and Seventeen Magazine.

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Then came junior high, and I stopped reading what I had been so passionate about in middle school. The girls I surrounded myself with weren't reading about Ivanhoe or the Count of Monte Cristo or even Scarlet O'Hara. I felt it necessary to plunge into my preteen years as a follower. Thus, I regressed to books about petty girls who didn't speak of much else than lip gloss, designer clothes, and boys. That's right, I'm talking about The Clique books.

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While I still enjoyed watching The Bridge to Terebithia, my literate self was still firmly mired in historical fiction and period pieces. I had moved from Victorian England to the Antebellum South where I found myself in love with the world Margaret Mitchell had created in Gone With the Wind. There was something about that book that was impossible to put down for even a minute. I remember running to the kitchen intermittently to yell to my mother how much I loved or hated Margaret Mitchell, depending on what happened to Scarlet. That novel remains poignant for me as I measure my own character growth through it. When I first read it in sixth grade, the only character I identified with was Scarlett. In my immaturity, I championed her seduction of Ashley and hoped she would reign victorious over Melanie Hamilton. Having reread it recently, my perspective has shifted to support and adore Melanie for her goodness and understated strength.

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The evening I tuned into Masterpiece Theatre with my mother changed everything for my literate self. The program was a film adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
and that was the moment I fell in love with British literature. I had been drawn in by the mystery and darkness about the story, but stayed transfixed by everything else. The moors, the clothes, the estates, the beautifully complicated way in which the characters spoke: I was hooked. A new era of my literate self began.

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By this time, my taste in literature revolved around fantasy and suspense. When the librarian noticed my taste, she introduced me to a popular series that aligned with what I seemed interested in. Lemony Snicket could capture my attention for hours, and I loved the suspense of his novels when he would break away from high climax to warn the reader not to go on. Of course, I always read on.

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My passion for reading ignited, I was reading any book I could get my hands on. The books I kept revisiting in my school library, however, were unconventional choices for my young mind.

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My second grade teacher, Mrs. Gigliotti, read The BFG to our class during read aloud, sparking my love for Raul Dahl and chapter books!

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I remember my mother reading a big book of C.S. Lewis stories to my brother and me every Sunday after church. This held particular significance because of the Christian motifs in Lewis's books. My mother would have us try and identify what sounded familiar to us from what we'd heard in church. The book contained all of The Chronicles of Narnia. I remember imagining the forest in my grandparents' back yard when she read about the forest Aslan created in the first book we read, The Magician's Nephew.

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The first book I read by myself was Sam and the Firefly by P. D. Eastman. I remember reading it for my Aunt Paula and she praised me exuberantly for reading the word "thermometer."

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I remember being read aloud to and learning to read on the The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury. Of these stories, I remember a Dr. Seuss story about creatures with stars on their bellies, the story about Ferdinand the Bull, and one about ducks crossing the street in New York

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Beginning at the beginning, as David Copperfield would say, my favorite read-a-loud books as an infant were Beatrix Potter books. I don't remember much of these books, but my parents tell me I enjoyed them quite a bit.