YA Blog Hop (June 18, 2012)

This is the first time that I am participating in The Crazy Bookworm's YA blog hop. I chose to take part this week because I have some extra time (It's summer vacation for this school media specialist.) and I wanted to know how others answered this week's question:

What book was it that ignited your love for reading?

I can't pick just one. I remember visiting the public library when I was in grades 5 & 6 because the school I attended in the morning was only a couple of blocks away. I would come home with stacks of books and disappear into my room until they were all read. I can't remember most of the books I read but I do remember The Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright. I so wanted to live in that house!

When I was in seventh and eighth grade I was attending a different school downtown with my brothers. We would go to the public library after school and wait until my dad was finished with work to take us home. Yes, we were those kids who used the library as a babysitter. I remember reading Time of the Great Freeze by Robert Silverberg each day at the library because, for some reason, I couldn't check it out. That book kindled a love for science fiction that hasn't gone away to this day.

When I was in high school I was still a reader. I discovered Georgette Heyer's Regency romances in my school library. I think The Nonesuch was the first one I read. That started my love for Regency romances that soon expanded into love for all sorts of romances. There was a used bookstore next door to the Duluth Public Library at that time that fed my need for romances by Emilie Loring, Betty Neels, and others.

I didn't stop reading in college either. The teaching collection at my college had lots of young adult books. But it was a long time ago, young adult books were so different than they are today. Most that I read were "problem novels" that always had a positive message or were thinly veiled attempts to discourage dangerous behavior. My Master's Paper was all about using young adult novels for "blibliotherapy." I read Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (drug abuse) and My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel (premarital sex).

As a school media specialist I have always tried to read a lot of the books I buy for my media centers. I love where young adult literature has gone. My students have so many more good choices than I had in high school. I am still a voracious reader reading a couple of hundred books a year.

BTW, I was surprised that so many of the books I read in the late 50s, 60s, and early 70s (my growing up years) were still in print. I don't plan to go back and read them again though. I am afraid they would no longer hold the magic they held when I first read them. Besides there are so many good books being published now that I have a never-ending TBR mountain to read.

Leave a link at The Crazy Bookworm or leave me a comment. I really want to know what book made you a reader.