Summer Library Challenge: Library Storytime

Hosted by The Book Monsters

You are probably wondering what happened to my enormous pile. Well I read some of the books such as The Rules for Breaking and Rumplestiltskin, but others such as The Frog Princess, Tender Morsels, and Clockwork Angel I decided to return unread. Bringing my pile down to only three books. I'm currently reading Popular by Maya Van Wagenen, then I hope to start The Real Boy by Anne Ursu, followed by Little City by The Lake by Celia Wilkins. Then I'm going to read random books for the rest of the month. 

Sorry about skipping last weeks topic, but I just couldn't motivate myself to write the post. To answer the question simply Yes, I do review library books in fact most of my reviews are library books. 

This week's topic is Library Storytime. I shared my library story during my Library Books Read-A-Thon so you can check it out. 

As a Kid: As a kid my daycare provider used to take us to the bookmobile and we could check out books on her card or our own. In those days I loved picking out a new book to read and get a new sticker on my library card. Then when I entered school we had library time where we could either read books that we had

already started or read new ones. I loved to browse the shelf and start new books during this time. I was always reading something. Library time was my favorite part of the day. My favorite books in later elementary were The Fudge Series by Judy Blume and The Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope Osborne. Reading opened my eyes to a whole new world. I have never stopped living in that wonderful world.

In Middle School: In Middle School library time ended, but despite that teachers still encouraged us to read. I believe in 6th grade we had to finish one book per quarter, in 7th and 8th grade we had certain number of AR points we had to earn. AR stands for Accelerated Reader basically you read a book, take the test, and earn points based on how well you knew the book. Then we eventually get to spend the points at the AR store. This was the time where I fell in love with Laura Ingalls Wilder. I begun reading her books in

6th grade and then I learned that there were books about her Great Grandmother Martha, her Grandma Charlotte, her Mother Caroline, and her Daughter Rose, so I begun reading all the spin off books starting with Rose and then moving on to Martha and Charlotte. I'm still working on the Caroline series. I was constantly in the library requesting a new Little House Book to read. This is also the time where I started to read The Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke which has its own movie series on The Hallmark Channel. I fell in love with this 12 book series so much that I have even read the whole series and its companion series twice. Another think I loved about The Love Comes Softly series is that it returned to the pioneer spirit I was so interested in. In middle school I was a frequent visitor at the library.

In High School: By the time we started High School most of my friends that were once readers had lost interest. It wasn't cool to sit around and read anymore and the teachers stopped encouraging pleasure reading. I had one friend who still loved to read, but we had totally different tastes. We challenged ourselves Freshman Year to read a book of the others choosing. I can't remember anymore what book my friend chose for me or what book I had her read, but it was such a fun challenge. It is actually a challenge that my sister and I are trying to complete this year. It was my idea, but my sister has completed 3/5 books I chose for her whereas I have completed 0/5 that she chose for me. I think we are always trying to push ourselves to read books that we otherwise wouldn't have picked up. That is the point of me and my sister's challenge. In high school I continued to read constantly, but it was coming to a point that I was running out of books that I was interested in. I had quit Janette Oke by this time no longer interested in the books I hadn't read by her, I had finished the Twilight series, and I basically just read Nicholas Sparks and Sarah Dessen. I wanted more variety in my reading and I wanted to find books that I was interested in. Why I'm such a big advocateinter-library loan, The Year I Turned 16. The Library in fact saved my reading in high school because without the library I'm sure I would have given up a long time ago for having nothing to read.

for books to movies is because in my younger years many times the way I found a new book to read was by the latest movie we had seen or I saw a trailer for the movie. It gave me something to read that I wanted to read. Through Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year of high school I struggled to find authors I liked and books to enjoy. People magazine and authors I already loved became my biggest ally. I also had two friends by Junior Year that liked to read so I played off them a lot and got book recommendations. Of course I have always had my sister who has similar taste. Colette who is a life vlogger on Youtube did a book recommendations video at one point. I believe I would have been a sophomore at the time and my sister and I started to read many of those books off her list. Then we were constantly trying to find videos on Youtube that didn't exist. In August of 2012 right before my senior year we discovered Goodreads and a few months later I started this blog. Now the world of books is endless. The library helped me every step of the way along my reading journey. They helped me to discover new books to read and even got my first book through

In College: As many of you know I'm about to start my Sophomore Year of College. Although I have plenty of books that I want to read on my Goodreads TBR list, the fact about getting the books is another story. I go an hour away for college and sometimes don't come home for several weeks making library books hard, but since I still don't have money to buy books I had to find a way to make library books work. I signed up for the public library in my town. I was less than impressed with this library system. Their hold system doesn't get you any books. All my holds have expired without me ever seeing the book and when you look on the shelves their adult section is stacked, but their Young Adult section is lacking. I knew I wasn't going to be able to read the books I want with this library. I decided I would continue to use my at home library that I have used basically my whole life. For the most part I have kept up with the due dates and returned the books on time. There has been a couple times where I had to pay a fine. What's great is that my sister can pick up my holds for me and I returned the favor during the summer since I go to work right by the library. Now I read a variety of books and majority of my books still come from the library although I'm slowly owning more books. As you can see I have had a long love for the library. If you made it this far congrats.