to_kill_a_mockingbird

When I was in first grade our reading groups were named after birds, blue birds, red birds, yellow birds. The best readers were in the blue birds, then red, then yellow. I know I was not in the blue bird group. I think I was with the red birds. This bothered me a lot, but probably wasn’t surprising since I don’t really remember my parents reading to me or helping me learn the alphabet or my numbers before I started school. With each advancement to a new grade I became a better reader and loved reading more. I spent a lot of time at the public library and in the school library. By sixth grade, I was reading constantly and discovered I loved reading biographies. I read every biography in the Backman Elementary school library that year. I got to be a library assistant part of the day. My job was to reshelve the books that had been returned. It was an excellent way to discover new books.

As an adult, I have wondered why I loved reading so much and it’s because the books and stories opened a whole new world to me. They allowed me to escape from the not so pleasant parts of my life. And they gave me hope that my life could be different. It seems like every biography that I read was about a person who was able to become “someone” after a rough start in life.

I still love reading and my favorite book for a long time has been, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I read it every couple of years. Other favorites are “Things Fall Apart” and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” I also like to read books set in the Southern United States.

Lately, my favorite books to read are the scriptures.