Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Memories

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Jana  at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in.

This week’s prompt is a Bookish Memories (Share stories of your reading life as a child, events you’ve gone to, books that made an impression on you, noteworthy experiences with books, authors you’ve met, etc. Reminisce with me!).

Books have always been an important part of my life. I may not remember the first book I read or all the bookish events I have attended, but there have been so many memories that this week’s theme has generated. It was hard to stop at 10!

Here are 10 of those bookish memories:

1. The first series I remember reading was Trixie Belden, but the one I loved the most was Anne of Green Gables. I still have all those original books I got as young teen. Throughout my life I still referr often to “kindred spirits”.

2. As a young teen I can remember reading a risqué book I found at home and when my mom took it from me, my dad intervened. He felt I had to learn what was worth reading and what was not, and that I had to learn for myself. That they should not censor me. My father was a great reader. I still have many of his books.

3. Throughout high school, we had to memorize passages from Shakespeare. Most teachers had us write out the passage for marks. I can still recite some passage (here the first lines):

“The quality of mercy is not strained….”

“To be or not to be..”

“Out out damn spot..”

4. I studied English literature at university and studied romantic poets, Shakespeare and American writers. Edith Wharton was one of my favourite authors, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles was a favourite read. One of my best essays was on this book.

5. After teaching my siblings when I was 7 or 8, of course I was destined to be a teacher. And I taught for over 30 years – from the NWT to Alberta to Ontario. My favourite part of teaching was sharing my love of reading. In the last 10 years of my teaching, I read The Book Whisperer By Donalyn Miller and it changed how I taught reading. I basically referred back to what my father said – that I should read what I wanted to. And so I did. And the children grew as readers.

6. There were so many wonderful books I read in my classroom, but in the last 5 years, the books by Kate DiCamillo were our favourites. I started the year usually with Because of Winn Dixie and read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane around Christmas.” These are only a couple of the many great read-alouds, so many memories. We kept a large calendar diary of all the books we read aloud through the year, and it numbered well over a hundred each year.

       

7. One particular memory relates to one special student in a Grade 3 class. She had limited abilities and a very poor memory. But when it came to listening to the novels I read to the class each day, she could remember what happened each day. One day as I was reading, (Spoiler alert!!) I read of the death of the little girl and my student popped up “NOOOOO. She can’t die!” She became so involved in all the books but especially Kate’s books.

8. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” also gave me another memory. After my mother died in 2008, another blogger suggested I read Tulane as it helped her with her grieving. And it did. It has always been a special book to me.

9. Another special book was Love you Forever, which I read over and over to my own children. I so enjoyed that quality time with my own kids.  I often read it in my classroom as well. Many times, I had hold back tears. I heard Robert Munsch read this book at a teachers’ conference many years ago, and when he sang the song from the book, I wanted to tell him he was singing it wrong! It was so different from the way I sang it!

10. My absolute favourite series now is The Others by Anne Bishop, a fantasy series of 5 books, with 2 additional books linked to it. I am working on reading it for the 3^rd time right now (on book 4). It has become my refuge, my solace, my stress releaser. These past 2 years have especially been a challenge. Books have saved me many times. And now that I am retired, I usually read a book a day.