Question of the Month and Happy 4th of July!

           

 

            The Question of the Month is a bloghop that occurs the first Monday of each month and it is hosted by Michael G D'Agostino from A Life Examined. Michael posed a great question this month that I really enjoyed answering. It was fun to reminisce on my reading memories. Here it is:

“What was the first book (or book series) you really fell in love with?”
 

            As I thought back over my many years of reading good books, I would have to say the first book I really enjoyed was also one of the first chapter books I read and it ultimately helped me to learn to really love reading. It was actually the fifteenth book in The Babysitter’s Club series by Ann M. Martin titled Little Miss Stoneybrook ... and Dawn. I was probably around nine or ten years old and saw it at a used book store. My parents said I could pick out one book. Most of the books looked old, boring, and worn out to me since I still judged books by their covers at that time. But that book stood out because it was a little newer and it had a pink border and spine, which was my favorite color back then. Before reading it, I had never read a book from a series, so the fact that it was the fifteenth book made no difference to me. After I read it, I experienced that longing for more of the story. I have since experienced that longing many times in books I’ve read, but that time was special because it was my first encounter with the desire to read more! I begged my mom to sign me up for the Scholastic Babysitter’s Club monthly book club when I first found out about it at school and received and read the first twelve books in the series. I liked the stories because each of the main characters were unique with diverse backgrounds and they were near my age. They may have also planted the seed of an interest in working with children, which lead to my major in elementary and early childhood education in college. I remember I would curl up in the floor next to my nightlight to read the series after my parents shut the lights out for bedtime and read multiple chapters before finally climbing back into bed. It was the beginning stages of my night owl bookworm habits that still continue to this day :)

 

            In other news, Happy Independence Day to my American friends! My town did their fireworks Sunday night, and keeping to my night owl tendencies, I am finishing this post up and hoping the internet will be agreeable at this fairly late hour. I will probably be spending some time with friends and family today with Independence Day celebrations and tomorrow for my birthday, so I’m not sure if I will manage to squeeze any blog visits in before my IWSG post on Wednesday, but I will try to catch up later this week!

Happy Independence Day!