Before I Was Old Enough to Read: The Way My Life Began

Before I was old enough to read, Mom hooked me on fairy tales. She bought a new one for me each month out of the small social security check she received after my father’s death. I was only four years old when my father died one cold Christmas Day in a charity hospital. Four years earlier, I’d been born in a charity hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. We never had much, but I hadn’t realized it. To me, before Daddy died, we had everything. We lived on South Third Street, in a rambling, white apartment house. We only rented, but I didn’t realize what that meant. I was rich, living in my make-believe world of fairy tales, rich in sunshine and fresh air, swinging in my board-and-rope swing underneath the giant pecan tree in our front yard. I was a happy little girl, who had everything I could possibly want. I had a doting dad and a loving mom. Daddy would rock me and sing me to sleep, singing about my beautiful blue eyes. Mother would read and rock me to sleep with fairy tales. My world was rich, happy, and content. I wanted for nothing.

This was only the beginning. Books and reading were important for me early on, and I've come full circle, from having them read to me, to reading them myself, and finally, to writing them. Stay tuned for more. The first few paragraphs are only the beginning.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading,
to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs,
is good for him.
~ Richard McKenna ~

The greatest gift is the passion for reading.
It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites,
it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind.
It is a moral illumination.
~ Elizabeth Hardwick ~