About Me

My Literary Journey

I haven’t been reading forever… just almost.  I actually didn’t really take off with my reading until about 4th grade.  I wish I could remember exactly what book or series really started me going, but I can’t.  I know my mom read to us all the time and I guess eventually I just wanted to keep on going… being read one chapter at a time just wasn’t enough, I had to know what was going to happen next.  Looking back it probably didn’t hurt that my parents raised us without a TV until I was 12 … reading was my one form of entertainment. 

What I do remember is that by 6th grade I was a very fast, avid reader.  Before high school I had read (or at least tried enough to know I didn’t want to read) nearly every book in the children’s section of our public library.  That’s actually saying a lot because even though we lived in a small town it boasted an impressive library with a particularly good children’s section, we’re talking hundreds of books at my disposal. 

Beyond that I would nag my poor mother to take me to the used bookstore every chance I got.  I remember they had a shelf or two of teen romance novels for $0.25 each.  I would use all the money I made from chores to boost my own library.  Some of my favorites were the One Last Wish series by Lurlene McDaniel (just the thing to send me into a state of hypochondria), and many of Lois Duncan’s teen mystery/thrillers (the kind that keep you up all night listening for things that go bump). 

At one point I discovered that these types of novels took me almost exactly one hour apiece to read and so I would buy a stack of them for each car trip.  Five books there, five books back… and a couple extras just in case.  And so, lost in a world of imagination, I passed my childhood away.

In High School I was introduced to real literature for the first time.  It wasn’t as though I had never read anything good before (I had loved The Little House on the Prairie Series, the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.).  But I was now opened up to the world of discussing and dissecting what I had read; either between my peers and myself, with a teacher or in papers.  Each one I considered amazingly fun.  I even enjoyed Silas Marner by George Eliot, something that everyone, including my non-English teachers, assured me I would hate! 

It was this love that lead me to make the highly impractical decision to become an English major.  I loved everything about my major (except that you had to take a foreign language which was torture to me).  Some of my favorite classes were spent debating the true meaning behind a single phrase, or diagramming sentences.  All of these things are lovely, until you get out in the real world and realize that they have absolutely no obvious marketable value. 

So, instead, I found the man of my dreams, had my fairytale wedding and became a stay-at-home mom which had always been my true dream job. (It may not ever make me any money, but has a value beyond all else.)   I still read incessantly, but I never really gave deep thought into what I read; I just enjoyed many a great story.  And because of this I wondered if I had forgotten the love of finding something special in a book, that is, until I got so incensed over the mistreatment of Twilight by Harry Potter fans that I felt the need to write swelling up inside of me.  I just had to put my feelings onto paper.  And so I wrote that paper (which later was edited into the blog post {here}) and once again the love of expressing what I found in my reading poured out.

Now when I read, I have an urge to express to others what has “bewitched me, body and soul.”  I strive to find virtuous lessons and themes; even in the frivolous stuff I read.  I love passing on those contemplations, musings, and reflections to fellow bibliophiles.  I don’t want to be graded as an English major (I honestly don’t care much about being grammatically precise anymore); I just want to send my thoughts out to those who will read them and hopefully inspire others to eagerly pick up that next book and take something special away from what they read.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and get to know me a little bit.

-Valerie

**Bragging rights to those who can tell me where the quote is from**