How did you become a reader?

[Sydney's Mom]

Interesting discussion in the romance freebies section about reading as rebellion. I know a lot of people discovered reading due to a special teacher. How did you become a reader? Harry T notes that readers have always been the minority-so how did we choose the path less traveled?

I became a reader to escape my childhood. Now, my life is so terrific, I find it hard to find time to read!

[Pookeysgirl]

My mom taught me how to read. I was about 3 years old. For as long as I can remember I've read to escape the reality around me. Still do to this day and I don't think that will ever change for me.

[K. Molen]

I have no idea. I don't remember a time when I didn't read. I've seen pictures of me as a small child pretending to read the dictionary, so I imagine that as soon as I was able to actually read I began reading the books my parents used to read to me.

I guess the answer lies in my parents, more specifically my dad. He loves books and there were always books around when I grew up. Because of him, I suspect that somewhere along the line I must've formed the world view that that's what you're supposed to do with your free time.

[sakura-panda]

I feel like I've always been a reader, so I really couldn't say how I became one. I don't know of any single one thing/event/person to credit. It is just something I've always liked to do and I've always been encouraged by my parents and other family members.

[DiapDealer]

I read a book. I liked it. So I tried another. Time passed.

I wish I had a more heart(warming|rending) and meaningful story behind it.

[jgaiser]

I'm another "I don't remember". I was a nerd with few friends and somewhere along the line discovered Science Fiction in the late 50's/early 60's. Neither of my folks were big readers and of 4 siblings, only two of us would have been considered readers.

[david_e]

Books have always been a part of my life. My mother and her sisters were all readers, both grandmothers, too, and they all read to me.

Like a few others have mentioned, books became a way to escape. They showed me there was a world outside the small town boundaries, that there was a life for me somewhere if I could hold on long enough. The library itself really was a sanctuary because the bullies wouldn't follow me inside.

I barely survived with them, I wouldn't have without them.

[Ti-Ron]

Books have been a big part of my life since I can remember. Use them to escape reallity and boring days in a small town.

I have an aunt who helped me with that. She live in a big city and helped me to get as many books as it was possible in all the used bookstores during summer vacancies.

I end up doing a master degree in litterature/publishing and and working in that field...

Big thanks to her!

[BeccaPrice]

I remember vividly learning to read, when the letters C-A-T, the picture of a black cat, and the sound of the word "cat" came together with an almost audible click. My first thought was "now, nobody will every be able to keep secrets from me again!" (my parents used to spell out word they didn't want to say in front of us kids, I think is what did it)

As a kid I much preferred living in the world of the imagination - real life was so *boring* when I could be having adventures-by-proxy in books.

And then I started being picked on, and I discovered that a nice, big, heavy book made a great weapon, particularly when shoved hard into some bully's stomach. They almost never grabbed for the book - I guess books had anti-bully cooties or some such.

I still feel like I'm being let in on a wonderful secret everytime I read a book, though.

[cromag]

I was a born reader. My folks were big readers and we always had shelves of books and magazines were always coming in the mail. I learned to read early and it was every bit as good as I expected it to be.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I read a book. I liked it. So I tried another. Time passed.

I wish I had a more heart(warming|rending) and meaningful story behind it.

Same here, as far as I can tell.

I learned to read at a fairly young age, and didn't have much difficultly with it, so interesting books were as accessible to me as TV or movies, and I like all of that.

However, I did have an uncle who was in the habit of reading the dictionary and the encyclopedia in the same way that some people read Readers Digest.* While I can't attribute my interest in reading fiction to him, I picked up that same affection for dictionaries and encyclopedias.

ApK

*No, I don't mean "in the bathroom." I mean picking it up casually and reading a random article or reading about a word just for the heck of it.

[BeccaPrice]

I wish that was enough to do it. My house is *full* of books on every subject, and neither of my kids are great readers. Now that my son has a kindle, he's reading more, but my daughter prefers to play vidoe games or text her friends or listen to music (or all three at once)

[Apache]

I was also a born reader. I can not remember a time when I did not read.
Apache

[BelleZora]

I can't remember my father, who may have finished 3rd grade, ever reading a book. But he inherited hundreds of books from his mother's last husband. They were published in the 1800's and included every issue of Harper's Weekly for 1876 (Little Bighorn reported in July and the Hayes-Tilden election). Before my teens I had read Shakespeare (I began with Charles & Mary Lamb) , Dickens, A. Conan Doyle (still own that 1st edition), Wilkie Collins, Poe, Hawthorne, Stowe, Alcott...many others. I particularly enjoyed an ancient school book about mythology.

Now I think my childhood was particularly rich, having been blessed with a mountaineer/woodsman father who loved to pass on his knowledge (how to tell the difference between a pine and a fir: slap a bough and if you say 'damn', it's a fir) and treasured the books he did not read.

[QuantumIguana]

I've always been a reader. I was taught to read very early, around 2. My mother would read to me at bed time, and my parents read. There were always books in the house.

At the time, it was unusual for children to be able to read before kindergarten. In Kindergarten, we were given picture books with no words. The idea was to teach us the idea of telling stories on paper, we didn't learn reading until first grade. I was confused at this because I could read.

I had these "Tell Me Why" books that I loved. They covered a pretty wide range of knowledge, and I would read them over and over. I found them again in piles of stuff, they are really dated and sometimes pretty inaccurate, but I still learned a lot from them.

The nearest bookstore was 60 miles away so I read whatever the small library the school had, and I always looked forward to bookmobile day. One of my favorite parts of the school year was when we ordered the Scholastic books.