My Reading History

My Reading History  by Ms. Dorsey

My mom read to me – a lot.  I had a large collection of Little Golden Books.   I wore them out "reading" them before I could even read.

When I was about five and learning to read,  I remember watching my dad read the newspaper and wondering how in the world he could read without saying the words out loud.

I learned to read in first grade -- Mrs. Horne's class at Overland Elementary.  She taught us phonics, and we learned to read using the Dick and Jane books.  

I read a lot all through elementary school. My parents bought me a set of classics for Christmas when I was eight, and I was terrified by Alice in Wonderland.  To feel safe when I went to bed, I had to put it in the case the books came in and pile other books on top of that.

When I was about twelve, I first read The Cat in the Hat -- my first Doctor Suess book.  Some children I was babysitting asked me to read it to them, and I had nightmares about that. 

I wasn't scared of all books.  My family lived on a farm, so we were a long way from a library.  We had lots of books in our house, but most of them were Little Golden Books and, of course, my set of classics, but my mom had a lot of adult fiction -- not books with inappropriate stuff -- just books written for adults -- so I read lots of those.   The library at the school was very tiny, but there came a time when my parents would drive me to the library in a town about ten or so miles away, and then I fell in love with horse books -- the Black Stallion series and others.  I also loved the Bobbsey Twins and Annette Funicello books and Freckles.

In my later teens, I discovered fantasy and science fiction, and those genres were go-to recreational reading for years.   I even took a college class on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, so I've read their books many times.  I have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at least twenty times.  I also enjoyed the Dragonriders of Pern Series and many other fantasy books.

Later I started branching out -- trying different genres and found that I enjoy many different genres -- mystery and westerns and historical fiction and nonfiction and even some horror (Dean Koonz).