MY EVOLUTION OF READING – by Kathy Ivan
I've always been a reader, from a very early age. I was one of those kids in school who when they got the reading list for the year had it finished in just a few weeks. Books were my escape from life, from school, from everything. They took me away to places I'd never get to see outside of their pages. I got to meet people and make special friends, all between the covers of a book.
One of my fondest memories was when I was about seven or eight. My mom loved to visit second-hand shops and used book stores and I'd often go with her. On this one particular afternoon, she was browsing, and I wandered around the store, never too far from her sight but enough that I felt free to look at my leisure. In my explorations, I found a tattered old cardboard box. When I started digging, I found these lovely old volumes of books I'd never seen or heard of. They all starred this girl called Nancy Drew.
Opening the first book, I remember falling under the spell of the story. A girl and her friends were having adventures. Solving mysteries. They were having FUN! Oh, I wanted those books so much, but I didn't have enough to get one of them, much less all that were in that box. I was heartbroken, because I knew they'd be gone the next time we came in. After all, these were special books, so everybody would want to read them.