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Growing up, I was surrounded by books and reading. My mom was an elementary school teacher at the time and was always switching out her library books with ones we had at home. She would read to us whenever she had the chance. These are some staple books that I remember loving and requesting over and over!

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Heading into Sleepy Hollow Elementary School, I remember being so excited to visit the classroom and school libraries. I was the kid who was always reading under my desk, and asking the teacher if we could read for Free Choice Time. Every summer through our city's library, I would take part in the Summer Reading Challenge (if you read x number of books before school started you got a free mini pizza from Mountain Mikes! Score!) I also spent a lot of elementary school looking forward to the best week of the entire year--the week when the Scholastic Book Fair rolled into town. The Magic Treehouse Books hold a special place in my heart as they were the first series I ever finished. I was really proud to then move on to the upper grade series, The Merlin Missions.

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By the time I began middle school, the YA Dystopian genre was beginning to explode. I distinctly remember when my friend read to me the first chapter of The Hunger Games and I was beyond hooked. In school, we also read one of my favorite books of all time, The Outsiders. Life and schoolwork got busier around this time, and I remember feeling sad that I didn't have as much time to read whenever I wanted.

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High school was an interesting time for me in terms of a reading journey. I was always so busy, and constantly had assigned class books to read that I rarely had time to read on my own. I also began to lose motivation to do so, because reading had lost its joy with all the essays and assignments we had to do for them. However, I rediscovered my love for reading later on in high school, when I accidentally began what I thought was a free subscription for Audible, an audiobook service. By the time I had fixed my Audible membership, I was hooked back on reading. Room by Emma Donoghue and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline are frequent re-reads for me.

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My love for reading has only grown in the past years. Being a full-time college and now graduate student, I was/am busy, but I always find time to read. Whether in between classes, commuting, or during DEAR time at student teaching, I love losing myself in a book. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my students fall in love with books and reading. I have also created what is now an overflowing "To Be Read" list, and I chip away at it whenever I can. This time of my life has also given me some of my most impactful reads, like Educated by Tara Westover or This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel.