My grandmother gave me the greatest gift imaginable when she taught me to read and write by age four. That early literacy sparked something fierce inside me—a hunger for stories that felt almost desperate. Books weren’t just entertainment; they were my lifeline, my escape from a childhood that no kid should have to endure.
The moment I discovered the elementary school library, I knew I’d found my sanctuary. Those quiet rows of shelves became more sacred to me than any church. The librarian quickly became my ally, understanding without words why a small child needed to disappear into those pages for hours at a time. She’d let me stay until the very last moment, until some teacher finally tracked me down.
Between those book covers, I lived a dozen different lives. I ran away to join Toby at the circus, feeling the sawdust under my feet and hearing the crowd’s roar. The Boxcar Children became my chosen family—Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny showing me that kids could be resourceful and brave even when the world felt overwhelming. When Laura Ingalls Wilder walked across the prairie to her one-room schoolhouse, I walked beside her, feeling the grass brush against my legs and the creek’s cool water on summer days.
My reading level quickly outpaced my age, and I became the librarian’s favorite challenge. After devouring Little Women—laughing with Jo, crying with Beth, and dreaming alongside Amy—I was ready for bigger adventures. I methodically worked my way through the Dewey Decimal System like I was conquering territory, hungry for every story those numbers could offer me.
Real-life heroes captured my imagination just as powerfully as fictional ones. Clara Barton’s battlefield courage, Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary ideas, Benjamin Franklin’s inventive spirit, Florence Nightingale’s compassionate determination, and Harriet Tubman’s fearless fight for freedom—these weren’t just historical figures to me. They were proof that ordinary people could do extraordinary things.
Then I encountered Flowers for Algernon, and something shifted. Even as a child, I grasped the story’s heartbreaking truth—that intelligence, that precious thing I’d come to treasure above all else, could be as fragile as it was powerful. The book stayed with me long after I closed its covers, a reminder that our greatest gifts often come with hidden costs.
If you asked me to name my favorite book from those library years, I couldn’t choose just one. Every story that helped me survive another day, every character who became my friend when I needed one most, every page that reminded me there were worlds beyond my own difficult reality—they were all my favorites. The school library didn’t just teach me to love reading; it taught me that books could be both shelter and wings, offering protection when I needed to hide and courage when I was ready to soar.