February 12, 2021 | hathawaym
March is Reading Month, and in celebration CPL staff are looking back at the books that first sparked our love of reading. What book made you love reading?
Tee V.: I remember reading the Junie B. Jones series when I was in first grade and falling in love with her spunky attitude and great sense of style, reading the whole series that was out to that point made me a voracious reader!
Whitney J.: It was the first book that made me think deeply about the social institutions in our country – race, class, gender, and more. I read it at least three times in elementary school and it’s still important to me today because of the ways that it opened my eyes to the world.
Amy L.: The very first book that made me a reader was Clifford the Big Red Dog. I would memorize what my mom read to me and try to repeat it back (I was around 3 years old and couldn’t read). I still love that dog to this day.
The library doesn’t own the very first Clifford book but I happen to LOVE Clifford’s Halloween."
Marianne B.: I was at the library with my mom browsing the children’s section. She handed me a copy of Kristy’s Great Idea and said it sounded like a good book. I read it that day and was immediately hooked! More than 30 years later, I’m still a huge fan of the Baby-Sitters Club. The library where I checked it out is special to me, too, because it’s the branch I grew up visiting regularly and got my first-ever library job, working there for five years.
Colleen O.: I was never a huge reader in school. I just read the required school assigned books. When I was in High School, dating myself here, the Howard Fast Lavette Family Series, were published and I was hooked. We don’t have any in our collection but another one I really liked was Thurston House by Danielle Steel. Funny...that’s the only Danielle Steel I’ve read.
Alyssa Y.: The first book I remember being obsessed with was What is a Rainbow by Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer.
I [also] had a childhood obsession with Sailor Moon. I absolutely loved all things Sailor Moon, and would watch the anime on TV every day. This lead me to the Sailor Moon manga, where I could read ahead of what was offered on TV as an anime. It was my first instance of that feeling of “the book was better than the movie” because the manga were much less episodic and had new characters and situations that the anime did not.
Jeanine G.: Two books captivated me when I was very young: Put Me in the Zoo, by Robert Lopshire, was equal parts magical, colorful and rhyming! Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson remains--to me anyway--the quintessential book that sparks the reader's creativity and imagination like none other!
Michelle N.: A book that made me love reading was Garfield! I can remember being a kid and laying on the floor with my cat, Tiger (who I was convinced could read too!), and pouring over Garfield books, reading them over and over, eagerly waiting for the next one my mom would order from our Scholastic book club sheets at school.
Dan P.: I was 13 and not much into reading. I remember my dad reading Jurassic Park and I had heard there was a movie coming out so I rushed to read it before seeing the movie. It was full of action and science and philosophy. And then I felt special going into the movie, already knowing what was up. I proceeded to read every Michael Crichton book and watch all the movie adaptations. It was a turning point in my life as a reader.
Marian N.: One of my favorite books as a child was Miss Suzy by Miriam Young. It fired my imagination, informed my love of nature (beautiful and fraught with danger) and taught me the importance of nurturing friendships.
I was pleasantly surprised to find it in our collection. The illustrations are as lovely as I remember(this explains my love of attics and tree houses)!
Barb G.: One of my favorite books when I was young was Pippi Longstocking. She lives by herself with her horse and her monkey and hangs out with her two best pals Tommy and Annika. She has no parental supervision because her father is away at sea and she could do whatever she wanted. She also had superhuman strength and did not always listen to adults. I enjoyed them even more when I read them to my children.
Jack V.: An item that I remember being really excited about at an early age is Eleanor Estes’ The Witch Family. I would check it out of my elementary school library and read that baby over and over and over again.
Megan H.: The first book I really remember loving was There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr. Seuss. Even though I was terrified by the zug under the rug, the names were so fun I requested that book time and time again.
Alyssa G.: I would read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom over and over again. I read it so much I turned it into a song! My favorite part is when the letters would all fall down.
Deb S.: The book I loved reading over and over again when I was a kid was The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments by Arnold Lobel. A great wizard lives in a world without color. He works his magic to create the color blue. Everyone in town wants the color blue and soon the whole world is painted blue. But the townspeople become too sad with so much blueness. The wizard must go back to his cauldron to create something new. Its underlying message is an appreciation for natural diversity in our world and how color has a profound effect on our emotions.