The Shelves That Raised Me

For National Book Lovers Day

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love books.

I developed my love for reading when I was very young. Back then, books were more than stories to me. They were places I could disappear into for a while. I could open a cover, turn a page, and suddenly I was somewhere else entirely.

I could live in worlds that weren’t my own.

And, without realizing it at the time, those worlds were helping shape my mind.

My Momma and Mamaw always supported my love of reading. My bookshelf filled up quickly, and they never seemed particularly concerned with whether a book was considered appropriate for my “reading level.” If I found a book I wanted to read—even one that should have been way beyond me—they bought it.

They put it on my shelf.

And they let me figure it out.

I’ve thought about that a lot as I’ve gotten older. There was something incredibly valuable in being allowed to reach for a book before anyone decided whether I was ready for it. Sometimes I understood everything. Sometimes I’m sure I didn’t understand half of what I was reading.

But I was never told not to try.

My first book report was Alice in Wonderland in the sixth grade, and perhaps that should have been an indication of things to come. 😂

Give me a strange world, interesting people, a little darkness, something beneath the surface, and a reason to wonder what on earth is going on, and apparently I am happy.

Some things never change.

As a child, I loved Shel Silverstein. I loved Charlotte’s Web, Alice in Wonderland, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales—and I mean the Grimm versions, not the ones where everybody gets a pretty dress and sings with woodland creatures. 😂

As I’ve grown older, my shelves have grown with me.

I love Philippa Gregory. I can lose myself in books about history, Cleopatra, Greek mythology, and studies of the human mind. I want to know what happened, why it happened, what people believed, what they feared, what they loved, and why human beings do the things we do.

Truthfully, I’ll read practically anything I can get my hands on.

But perhaps my favorite part of loving books now is getting to share them.

I read to my grandbabies as often as they will let me—which, depending on the grandbaby and the day, can require some negotiation. 😂

When each of them turns five, I buy them their own copy of Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Inside, I write a personal note just for them.

Someday they will be grown.

Someday I hope they’ll pull that book from a shelf, open the cover, see my handwriting, and remember that their Neni wanted them to have a place where imagination didn’t have rules.

I suppose I’m doing for them, in my own small way, what Momma and Mamaw did for me.

They filled my shelves.

They never told me a story was too difficult, too strange, or too far beyond where I was supposed to be.

They simply let me read.

And those books became part of me.

They taught me that worlds could exist beyond the one I could see. They introduced me to people who had lived hundreds of years before I was born and to people who had never lived at all. They made me curious about history, human nature, places I’d never been, and lives completely different from mine.

Eventually, that little girl who disappeared into other people’s worlds began creating worlds of her own.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Reading shaped the way I think. It shaped the way I see people. It shaped my curiosity, my imagination, and ultimately my life.

And now, when I look at the bookshelves in my own home—or sit with a grandbaby beside me and turn the pages of a story—I can see the thread running all the way back.

Mamaw.

Momma.

A little girl with a rapidly filling bookshelf.

Me.

And now another little hand reaching out to turn the page.

For that, I will always be grateful.

Happy National Book Lovers Day.

Keep reading the books you’re “supposed” to read.

Read the ones you’re not.

Read something too difficult. Read something silly. Read something that makes you uncomfortable. Revisit the story you loved when you were ten.

And every now and then, pick up a book simply because something about it whispers, “Come see what’s inside.“

🌿You never know which story might become part of who you are. 🌿