I am a reader. I was raised by three voracious readers: Mom, Dad, Stepmom. I come from a long line of book addicts. My parents read to my brother and me a LOT. I remember desperately wanting to learn to read and it seemingly taking forever to get to the part in school where the teachers taught us the secret code. The first book I ever read (cobbled together slowly as I added new words to my list) was Puppies Are Like That. I read it on the floor of my bedroom, up past my bedtime, crouched next to the feeble glow of my nightlight.

Finally achieving reading independence was such a good day for me. My parents were not huge fans of television; there was little or no TV watching at either house. Being able to read meant I would not be dying of boredom as I had feared.

This was a legitimate concern, as the most entertaining bits of real estate in my tiny hometown were the library, the high school football field, and the bike-trailed grassy fields behind the middle school where we jumped our bikes and tried to avoid rattlesnakes. There were no video game arcades. When I was in the fourth grade, we did get a (as in singular, one) Pac Man video game. Then we (and by ‘we’ I mean the whole damn town) had two pinball machines and the Pac Man. Score.

Almost equaling my nightlight reading moment was my first solo trip to the one-room cinder block cube that was the town library. I asked the librarian how many books I was allowed to check out at a time. She said, “As many as you can carry,” and I just about pissed myself with happy-shock.

I grabbed about 15 picture books from the kid section before she changed her mind, and as soon as she checked them out for me I ran out the doors to my phat pink Schwinn (flowered banana seat, flowered basket, BMX knobby tires that my Mom had had put on as a nod to my tomboyish nature) and pedaled furiously home. I ran to my room, sat on my floor and read the whole stack, one book after another. Fifteen minutes later, I hopped back on my bike and rode my little way back across town to the library. I shoved the books into the return slot, and checked out a whole new stack.

Seeing that I was not understanding the complex workings of the public library system and worrying that I would collapse from exhaustion, the librarian explained the way most people use the library—sitting around at the tables, reading what they want to on the premises, and then taking everything else home and keeping it for a while. It was thoughtful of her to illustrate the big picture for me. Thus began my lifelong obsession with libraries. Which goes along well with my addiction to the printed and bound word.

I still crave books more than most things. My earthquake preparedness kit has more books than cans of food (in the event of an earthquake the library would be shut down along with the rest of the city, and what would I do then? Am I the only one who thinks of these things?). Along with my jumper cables, my spare tire and some blankets, I have two books in my trunk in case I break down or there’s some kind of roadside reading emergency. I fully admit to being a total spaz.

Posted by Alexa Harrington