How I became a book blogger

I exuberantly started first grade in the fall of 1957 at Colchester Elementary in Colchester, Illinois. We did not have kindergarten in that time or place. Imogene Webster was my teacher. I vividly remember the day we started learning to read. I was so excited. Mrs. Webster explained to us that learning to read was so important. What if we were shopping with friends and we could not read the signs in the windows, she said to us. Wouldn’t we be embarrassed if we had to ask someone to tell us what the signs in store windows said? I really took this to heart. It scared me.

 Later that school year, everyone got to take home a library book to read. Mrs. Webster chose our books for us because she said we were at different reading levels and she wanted each of us to have something we could easily read. I was delighted that while many of the students were given a paperback book, mine was a hard cover book. This was a big deal to me, as it was my first hard cover book that I could read myself! Our class reading book, a Dick, Jane and Sally book, of course, was a paperback. To me, a hard cover book meant it was really a grown up book!

My second grade teacher, Mrs. Weinberg who lived in Augusta, Illinois, was my favorite grade school teacher. There were around 25 students in the class. I was a shy, not-popular kid, but she saw something about me. Whenever she had to leave the room for a few moments, she would tell the class that I was in charge. As much as this surprised me the first time, it did much for my self-esteem.

Mrs. Weinberg’s relationship with me really opened my eyes to how much a teacher has to do with a child’s confidence and self-esteem, and what they can accomplish. I did not realize this until many years later.

In second grade, Mrs. Weinberg also let us go to the little library down the hall and check out books. After we read a book, we could go up to her desk and tell her about the book, kind of a little summary so she could tell if we had really read it. She had a chart on the wall with each of our names listed vertically. Each time we read a book we got to put a sticker by our name. This was the time when I really learned to love library books. We could read as much as we wanted, and I was constantly going to Mrs. Weinberg’s desk and excitedly telling her about a book I had read.  

 As shy as I was about speaking in class, it was so fun to share with her one-on-one about a wonderful book I had read. (Does this sound like a future book blogger or what? :) ) One day when I had just begun to share with her, I had hardly got out two sentences, and she smiled and laughed kindly and told me that was all that was required. She said she knew I had read the whole book. I was really disappointed that I did not get to tell her all about the book I had read, but later realized this was a compliment.

One day as I put up one of my stickers, I looked at the whole chart in amazement. I guess for a long time I had just been focusing in my own line of horizontal stickers placed side by side from left to right. To my surprise, my stickers extended clear out almost to the far right edge of the huge chart, while everyone else in the class had stickers that only extended a small length. I had not even noticed this before. I am not really a competitive person. There was never any intention by me of competing with anyone else, and I had not even paid attention to who was ahead. At the end of the school year I was surprised with an award from the Illinois Superintended of Schools, or something similar if my memory is correct. The award was a beautiful red, white, blue and gold ink pen which I treasured.

Years later I learned a word, “intrinsic” as in intrinsic pleasure, meaning to do something simply for the pleasure of it and receiving no other reward except the pleasure of doing it. Reading in second grade, as now, is definitely an intrinsic pleasure. When I think about the pleasure of working on this blog, and think back to these memories of over fifty years ago, what a beginning I had for a book blogger.