Flashback Friday: I love books!

This week is a great Flashback Friday about books.

My Flashback:

Books have always been important to me. I always loved reading and always had a lot of books.

I still have the Golden Books from my childhood. I like that my Mom wrote my name in them along with the date and who gave them to me. Some of them are very worn, I can tell which were my favorites. There was one (and I can't remember the title, of course), but it had a picture of a little girl laying in a barrel. This made me want my own barrel! My Dad fixed one for me under my slide. I don't know that I really laid in it, but I thought it was neat to have one like the girl in the book. Now that I am grown these books have been a treasure to have to share with Caleb.

During school we got to do book orders. I was always so excited to look through these order forms and choose some books. This really added to my book collection and I had so many. The funny thing is I don't know how many of those I ever read! When I have gone through them over the years, many of them I don't remember reading. We went to the library in the summer, and I always participated in the summer reading program. I still remember the smell of those old library books! I loved books by Beverly Cleary and also the Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin. I owned a ton of both and borrowed them from the library.

Because I had so many books and because I loved libraries, I categorized my books and made my own little library. I still have some of those chapter books today, and it makes me laugh to see my labels and numbers on the inside. I remember one group was comics or joke books. So I'd write Comics, #9 on the inside cover along with a stamp "From the Library of...." I was trying to keep a list of how many I had.

In high school my favorite book was To Kill a Mockingbird. I also enjoyed Huckleberry Finn my junior year and the projects we did while reading it. I found my copy of that book during our move, and it was neat to go back and look at what I had marked and written in the margins. I want to reread both of these along with The Scarlet Letter.

As an adult books continue to play an important role in my life. I've also shared my love of reading with my husband. He reads all the time now too, which he didn't do when we dated and in our earlier years of marriage. He likes to find new books on the sale rack at Mardel or at the annual library book sale. I've wanted to pass our love of books to our son and he has always had many books. It makes me sad when children don't have books at home to read and use. We went to the library story time before he started to school and still make a weekly trip to the library. It thrills my heart when he gets an idea of a topic in his mind of a book he wants to find at the library. This week it was hurricanes. I love to look through the book order forms he brings home now and can usually find one or two for him or to give as gifts.

Thanks to Linda for another great topic this week.

Have a day of blessings!