Why I lost my love of reading
I fall into the stereotypical camp of nerdy, “gifted” child turned burnt out adult. Reading was, I believe, my first love. My mother read to me every night from a young age, and my innate compulsive tendencies had me asking her to reread “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go” as soon as she turned the last page.
I read every book off the shelf in my preschool at least twice and finished the entire year’s worth of assigned Sam I Am books within the first two months of kindergarten. They let me graduate to Dr. Seuss then, before many of my peers, just to keep me occupied (and prevent me from distracting everyone else).
I was a chatty kid too, and it got me in trouble constantly. But, I wanted to talk about the stories I was reading. Wasn’t anyone else gripped by narrative exploration and its impact on our very lives? I’m sure I shouted those exact words in my classroom as a 5-year-old.
I spent as much free time as I could in the school library throughout my K-12 career, and dragged the frayed covers out onto playground with me to keep me company on the swings. I wasn’t a friendless kid by any means, I just loved to get lost in stories.
In my elementary school days, I was drawn to historical fiction and high fantasy. Middle school…
