Reader of Books

By Carol Woolum Roberts

I remember the first time I heard a friend utter these words to me…

“I don’t like to read.”

I was probably in college when my friend said these words to me.

I was genuinely flabbergasted.

Nobody had even said that to me before.

“What do you mean, you don’t like to read?”

I started reading when I was five years old.  I know that because my mom shared with me that our kindergarten teacher would let me hand out papers to the other students because I could read the names on the papers.

In elementary school, I remember being so excited when I got to order books from the Scholastic book order form.  I still have many of those treasured books on my shelf in my home now.

Then there was the library.  I spent much time at the Kellogg Public Library, perusing the shelves.  I read every Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book, reading about her magical cures to help naughty children.  I still remember the “radish cure” for the girl who didn’t want to bathe.  She was so dirty that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle told her mother to plan radish seeds in the dirt on her arms.  Once the radishes sprouted, the girls was motivated to take a bath.

And then there was the challenge to read all the Nancy Drew books as well.  There was a list of all the titles in the back of the Nancy Drew books, and I think I may have kept a list of which ones I had read, and which ones I still needed to read.  I hit the jackpot one year while working at Kellogg Middle School when they were purging their library shelves, and some of the books they were giving away were Nancy Drew books.  I scored 27 books in the Nancy Drew series, and have read everyone of them. 

I love being asked to read books.  At Kellogg High School, I remember one of my English teachers Mary Rae Faraca had us read “Of Mice and Men” and “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck.  I probably would have never picked up these books and read them on my own.  But it was fascinating being pulled into early 1900’s California with these books.  We may have read “Tortilla Flat” as well. 

In college I took a class called “Contemporary Fiction for Non-Majors” a class analyzing books for students who were not English majors (I was an English minor).  Again I read some books I would have never picked up on a book shelf, but these books have stayed with me over time.  Some included “Sometimes a Great Notion” by Ken Kesey, and “3 by Flannery O’Conner” including the books “Wise Blood”, “The Violent Bear It Away” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge”.

In junior high I loved to be scared, reading such books as “The Amityville Horror”.

As a young mother, I read classics I never read when I was younger, such as “Wuthering Heights”, “Jane Eyre”, and “Anne of Green Gables”. 

I love the smell of books.  I love the feel of books.  I love how some books are comfortable old friends that I revisit time and time again.

The best books are those that teach me, transform me, and make me better. 

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I am always looking for good books to read.  What are some recent books you have read that you would like to recommend to me and our readers?

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