As I was out on a mini adventure with my daughter, we ended up in one of the nearby Independent Bookstores. This was not our first time in this store, nor would it be our last. I went there with the purpose, of course of buying a book. (I did not need another book. There are many books in my home.) There was also a secondary purpose of the bookstore visit that day. I wanted to talk to them about our World Wide Reading Challenge.
I walked around the entire store and picked out the book I would buy. It was written by an author I have never heard of. I knew nothing about this book. The title, the cover, and the reviews on the back of the book were enough to draw my attention. Then, I read the first two lines of the synopisis. This would be MY book! We headed over to the counter to make my purchase. Then it was time to share the story of our Reading Challenge. As you might expect, someone who works in a bookstore shared my love of reading. Then, she asked me a question. The best question ever!!
“Why do you care so much about books?”
I quickly gave her my unprepared answer, and then I added more to it. My mind kept working on that answer even after I had left the bookstore. Reason after reason raced through my mind of why I cared so much about books.
So, why do I care so much about books?
The short answer..
Books are magical. They are places we can go to learn. They are places we can go to see things we could never see ourselves. They are places to play. They are places to figure out who we are. They are places to understand our world. They help us to understand others. They teach us empathy. They give us hope. They are our history. They are our past. They are who we come from.. They are our future. They are the places we, or our children or grandchildren, might go and explore. They are happy thoughts, wishes and dreams.
I do not remember when I first started to care so much about books. I was too young to remember this time in my life, but I have been told this story many times. As a toddler, I would sit and wait for my Daddy to come home from work with a pile of books for him to read to me. This is not because my Mom did not read to me. I am sure she spent much of our day reading books to me. But when my Dad came home, he would read to me. I have been told that many of my favorites I had memorized every word. I would not let them skip a page or shorten the story. Those words were important to me even before I could read them to myself.
My parents read to me. I saw them reading on their own. We always had books in our house. After I started school, I loved getting books from the library, or better yet getting books from the Book Order at school. Those were mine to treasure forever.
Why do you care so much about books?
As a child. I started to make up my own stories. I later wrote them down, or carefully typed them out. I created my own worlds with my friends. I wove my own tales. The words had to spill from my mind onto the page. I created stories with my children and then my students.
My book shelves are full. I have 1,000's of books, and yet more books find their way into my hands and life. The words find a home in my library. My home is a library. The words play and dance and sing.
Books are my happy thoughts.
Books are my wishes.
Books are my dreams.
-Lisa Montoya (amateur librarian, part-time writer, and full-time reader)
