Quote:
Originally Posted by Blossom
I was denied books as a child and didn't get my own books to read till I was 17. A few people smuggled some books for me to read after mom pulled me from 4th grade when she had a mental break down. While in public school I took advantage of the school library but you could only check out one book at a time. After I was pulled out I would go a long time till I could get my hands on more books to read.
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How horrible. I'm sorry you had to experience that. Books were the blessings of my youth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer
Today my favourite English teacher in secondary school visited our store. Even after 18 years he still recognised me. He was the only teacher who himself showed his enthusiasm of reading for fun. He was always telling us about the books he'd read. He was also the one teacher who didn't mind it if you wanted to read a book that wasn't on the school's reading list as long as he had read it himself or was interested in reading it. He was the one who motivated me to read in English.
I told him this and that he's the reason I now have a 100+ book a year reading habit. He really liked hearing this and he told me that was the reason he was always telling us about the books he read and the fact that it made me a reader was worth the effort.
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I think many of us had such a teacher. Mine was ninth grade. He apologized to us at the end of the year because he had only taught us 1,200 new words. But he also had us reading Shakespeare for
fun.
My very first job (at age 14, the minimum age allowed in my state) was as a library page. Shelving books, repairing spines and being generally useful. I got to know the Dewey Decimal System quite well.
By that age, I was a confirmed reader of everything I could get my hands on. I had already read virtually everything even vaguely age appropriate in both the school and public libraries, and was working my way through most of the non-age appropriate books.
