I Love to Read

I love to read.  And I read a lot.  Libby loves to read.  She reads a lot.  It is so hard for me to understand and relate to people who don’t read.  I try, I really do, but I don’t get it.  Especially when they say they don’t like to read.  I’m always shocked and sometimes, a little hurt even.  How can you not love books?  They are the one thing that has always been there for me. Poor books.  

As a teacher I see students who aren’t in love with reading.  It is always my personal mission, goal, life’s work to try to help each and every student find a book they like and learn how to become better readers.  It makes me so sad when students say, “I’m not good at reading.”  We are all good readers!  Just because you don’t read fast, or lots of pages, doesn’t mean you’re not a good reader.  Keep reading - speed comes.  For now, let books take you away.  Let them paint a picture and take you places you could never go.  My favorite are kids who sit on social media, reading all day long basically, and saying “I can’t read”.  Can you read a quote on Instagram?  Can you read posts on Twitter/Facebook?  Do you get caught up in arguments on social media and read long threads going back and forth?  You can read.  You’re choosing not to read books.  

So much of it is finding the right book.  I don’t like to read much nonfiction.  Or even realistic fiction actually.  I trend towards fantasy, historical fiction, dystopian, science fiction, etc… I have read almost every Mary Higgens Clark book though, and did get into James Patterson for a while.  I’ve read a few really amazing books and I’ve forced my way through some others.  Gone Girl comes to mind.  Everyone claimed it was so good.  I forced my way through and it finally got okay at the end.  Fault in the Stars was horrible.  Paper Towns even worse.  I’ve found that I’m not the book club kind of girl, even though I read a lot.  Because I don’t want to get stuck reading a book I don’t like just because it is on some best seller list.  

Where is all this going?  I overheard a student say the other day, while noticing their classmate who has reached over 500 steps of reading minutes - every 15 minutes is a step, that they must “not have a life”.  Now THAT bothers me.  That kind of thinking starts at home.  Take Libby for example, she read 39 books and approximately 17,000 pages last year.  She was upset because that was down 10 books and 2,000 pages from the year before.  Libby has a life.  She works 2 jobs, is involved in school activities like FFA, drama, band, and choir, has her own horse that she rides, trains, shows and takes care of, not to mention when she helps me with my three, has a boyfriend, and a very active social media personality (too much maybe).  She still finds time to read.  A lot.  We make time for the things that are important to us.  Just because books are important to us, doesn’t mean we don’t have a life.  I’ll never forget the time I told her to stop reading and come watch a movie with us.  Like what teacher and parent does that?  Stop reading and come sit in front of the TV.  But sometimes we miss her.  

I love sharing and talking about books with people.  If you like the same kind of books as I do, let’s share our favorite titles!  I deleted my Facebook page about books for lack of interest.  But I still love sharing, so shoot me a message and let’s talk books!