Top ten best bookish memories

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week is the Top Ten Best Bookish Memories. I was excited when I saw this week’s prompt. I’ve wanted to do this for a while, but it was never a subject for which I had a top ten. But I have many, many bookish memories!

These are not in any order. There is no way I could possibly decide which memory is the most important!

1. Going to the library when I was younger.

I grew up in a small town, and we had new books at the library about every three months. I would read all the books for my age long before the new books showed up. My mom started taking me to libraries in three different towns so I could have more books. I read in English and French, so I had even more options!

2. Discovering The Baby-Sitter’s club.

These girls were so cool. Their lives were perfect, and when they weren’t, it was because they had something important to learn. They were best friends and all the kids they baby-sat listened really well. There was a similarity to them that was comforting. They didn’t age. They had the best vacations. This is the series that started my reading obsession.

3. My first time in a used book store.

I was around 9 years old and on the way, my parents told my sister and I that we could get all of the Baby-Sitter’s club books we hadn’t read. All of them! We got 18. On the drive home, I was looking at them, trying to decide which one to read first. My sister read them in order. We’re different like that.

4. Reading my first grown-up book, Flowers in the Attic.

People read this? It’s so twisted. And awesome! They’re swearing in this book! What? They can’t do that! That lady is crazy! I couldn’t believe how different this story was from everything I had been reading. Now, this series is sold in the teen section, but it was a grown-up book when I was a teen!

5. Reading The Pillars of the Earth and World without End, by Ken Follet.

I actually read the second one first, but there’s a two hundred year difference between the books, so it’s not like I was missing something. I stayed up until two am, four days in a row reading World without End, then bought Pillars of the Earth because the person who was going to lend it to me wasn’t done reading it. There was no way I was waiting!

6. Discovering Alice Hoffman.

Pure magic. The first book of hers I read was Practical Magic. Sisters, witches, love and spells. It made magic real. She also wrote The Dovekeepers, which is probably my favourite book, as an adult. (I have a favourite as a kid too. Like Disney princesses. My favourite from when I was a kid was Ariel, as an adult, it’s Mulan.) I haven’t read all of Alice Hoffman’s books yet. I’m saving some, as a treat for when I need one.

7. Little Women, my favourite book as a child.

I wanted to be one of the March sisters! I was never sure which one, it depended on the day I was having and what adventure they were on. Even now, there is something special about reading that book. When I was fifteen, I got a huge, illustrated copy. One of the best gifts I have ever received!

8. Re-reading books.

I used to think everyone did this, but apparently not. When I find a book or a series I like, I read them more than once. I’ve read the Earth’s Children series so many times, I can open any book to any page and just start reading. Other books I regularly re-read are: The Divas don’t knit series, Leftover Dreams by Charlotte Vale Allen, Practical Magic and any book by Jennifer Cruisie.

9. College.

Here in Québec, we have college, then university. During my two years of college, I was in a litterature program. While other studends studied and did reaserch, I read. Plays, books, poetry, novels, short stories, songs. You name it, I read it. In French and English. I even had Spanish classes. I wrote a lot too. It was pure bliss.

10. Watching my students fall in love with books.

I love it when I call their name and they don’t hear me because they’re just so captivated by the story they’re reading. Their eyes light up when I tell them I’m going to read a story. Sometimes, if it was a particularly good book, they clap when it’s done. In a world of so much technology, it’s wonderful to see children surround themselves with books and the magic they bring.

What’s your best bookish memory?