Literary Autobiography by Suzanne Reed

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Literary AutobiographybySuzanne Reed
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• My earliest memories involving books go back to
  when I was 3 or 4 years old. My grandmother
  would take me to the library and we would check
  out armfuls of books. I can remember her reading
  Alice in Wonderland to me as we snuggled in her
  bed on a warm summer night. After I fell asleep
  she would stay up until the wee hours of the
  morning reading her own happily ever afters.

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School Days

• For someone who was around a family of readers it
  was probably a surprise to all when I had to
  repeat first grade. I just wasnt getting it. I
  remember not being able to read when everyone
  else in the class could. An older student came
  into our class to help me and this gave me the
  extra push I needed. I was so proud the day that
  it finally clicked. Dick and Jane books were
  still popular back then and being able to find
  out how the story ended was quite an
  accomplishment for me.

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• In the elementary school years that followed I
  can remember reading the entire Happy Hollisters
  series, Nancy Drew stories, and anything that
  Judy Bloom had written. Are You There God Its
  Me Margaret was a rite of passage with all my
  friends. It was something for girls only.

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• Going in to middle and high school I was exposed
  to many new types of literature by my teachers.
  I remember reading The Once and Future King in
  tenth grade, Chaucer and Shakespeare in eleventh
  grade and more self selected works, such as Uncle
  Toms Cabin and The Grapes of Wrath, in twelfth
  grade. Some of these works were a bit daunting
  but their influence still remains with me as an
  adult. There are times when someone will
  wittingly refer to a phrase or verse from the
  Canterbury Tales, Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet and
  Ill smile because I get what theyre talking
  about.

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• For pleasure during these years I read V.C
  Andrews books. Flowers in the Attic, Petals in
  the Wind, and If There Be Thorns were considered
  a big draw for teenagers.

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• Moving on to college I sometimes felt too
  inundated with the demands of my classes to pick
  anything other than an occasional magazine or
  newspaper to read. Wading through Nietche,
  Plato, and Elie Wiesel for Philosophy and
  researching journals for information in
  Psychology kept me plenty busy. Pleasure reading
  was reserved only for summers, when I was away
  from school. Ann Rices Vampire Chronicles had
  come out and I read them like they were going out
  of style. With a Halloween birthday this type of
  subject matter has always appealed to me.

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• As an adult Ive gone through my phases in regard
  to what kinds of things Ive chosen to read.
  During busy times when I had small babies I
  referred to What to Expect and child rearing
  books.
• In less demanding times I took after my
  grandmother and began to read happily ever
  afters. (This was our way of describing romance
  novels) They gave me a chance to escape and
  always had a happy ending.
• My passion for reading really took off when I
  became an assistant librarian at my childrens
  school. Funds were practically non-existent for
  buying new books so I began an annual used book
  sale to raise money for the library. We raised
  enough to buy computer software to catalog
  existing books and stocked up on hundreds of
  titles that the kids loved. A perk of the job
  was having first pick of the books donated for
  the sale. I brought home classics, Oprah Book
  Club books, gardening books, you name it!

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• Today, I still read for pleasure and have passed
  that joy of reading on to my own children. Many
  bedtimes have been spent reading favorite books
  over and over again or until we all had the words
  memorized. We still laugh when we recall books
  such as The Wide Mouthed Frog, Harry Potter, and
  Grandma and the Pirates.