Flashback Friday

Did you like to read when you were a child? What were your favorite genres, books or series? Did you read books because of the author or because of the title/plot? Did you own many books? Did your school distribute the Scholastic book orders (or some other type)? Did you visit the library often? Was there a summer reading program when you were young, and did you participate? Do you have any particular memories of your school libraries? What were your favorites and least favorites among the classics (the ones high school English teachers assign!)? If you didn't like reading, do you like it more today than you did then?

I loved little Golden Books, Little Red Riding Hood being one of the favorites. I can still remember the way the light came through the leaves of the trees in the forest and shone on the dirt path.



Mr. Grabbit was about a stingy, materialistic rabbit who took more than he needed of everything and ended up precariously flying in a storm because he had too many umbrellas which caught him up in the air-- a slightly attractive, slightly horrifying thought when you're six years old!


I also had little prayer books that I cherished, and they helped form my spiritual life.

Scholastic book orders were some of the best days of the school year for me. I felt absolutely RICH when my two or three books came. Clifford was a favorite Thank you, Mom and Dad! What a sweet memory I had not thought of in so long ....

I also enjoyed the SRA reading program which let you see yourself progressing through color-coded levels. Now this was a sport I could compete in!


Summertime meant Bookmobile time. I can still remember the unique smell of the books mixed with diesel fuel once you entered and how books were arranged by grade level on slanted shelves to keep them from falling off.

In high school, I fell in love with Charles Dickens and have never completely gotten over him. And thank you, Mrs. Linda Ayres, Ms. Sondra Seibold and Mrs. Ruth Hillman at Muncie Southside Highschool for instilling a love for reading and writing. Sondra Seibold introduced us to Shakespeare, and I will never forget that experience.

I went on to become an English major at Ball State University, so I love the classics and rarely read contemporary fiction. Right now, however, I'm trying to finally finish John Grisham's A Painted House.

Thanks, Lid, for jarring my memory. I don't know how you come up with so many questions each week on one topic when I can't come up with 12 random ones easily!!