Unlike most writers, I was not an early reader. Because of a reading problem (I refuse to think of it as a disability) I did not read until after I attended a special school at ten years old. By the time I caught up with other children my age I had missed most children’s books. I loved stories though and my favorite time each day was when the teacher would read to the class after lunch.

I will never forget the summer I turned thirteen. I was old enough to go to the library alone and I’d learned to read well enough to pick up any book and move though it slowly. Every Saturday I’d ride the bus downtown and get lost in the library for most of the day. Picking out a book was far more exciting to me than shopping for anything else I could imagine. Sometimes I’d collect a dozen and curl up in a corner to read the first chapter of each one before deciding which one I’d take home.

Once I read the book I’d checked out, I’d spend hours making up the ending to all the books I didn’t get to bring home. Daydreaming became my favorite hobby. Now, as a New York Times Bestseller, I often think that I’d like to go back to all those teachers who told me to pay attention in class and tell them that I was busy planning my career. I also wonder, if I’d read earlier, would I have developed my own imagination.

My love affair with books has never ended. I still feel that rush when I pick up a good book and step into a new world. I’m lost from reality for hours. How rich my life is thanks to all the people I’ve met and places I’ve been in stories and all the ones who live in my imagination.

Listing my favorite book….impossible…I’d have to list a library full.

A fifth generation Texan who taught family living, Jodi Thomas chooses to set the majority of her novels in her home state, where her grandmother was born in a covered wagon. Her most recent release is Tall, Dark, and Texan.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

This post was written by and is filed under Saturdays in the Nook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.