Thankful For Books

Today I want to focus on books. Yep, those things with pages that we can turn and hear the pages crinkle.

My first memory of a book was when daddy took us down to the old place and we found where people had dumped some of their garbage. In that pile were magazines of True Detective and True Romance. True Detective was a magazine about actual crimes and they showed pictures and talked about what happened. I loved the graphics on the covers, although some of them were pretty scary.

Now Daddy would not have wanted me reading stuff like that so I did the only thing I could. I sneaked those magazines into my room.

Ruby had read to me from the Bible and showed me a few words and by the age of 5 or 6, I could read. When I got an alone moment, guess what I did? I pulled those magazine out from under the mattress and poured over them.

When I finished with them, school started and I went to my first Library. I was stunned when I walked into the room. I did not have any books at home to read. We did not make weekly jaunts to the library. It was a wonderland to me and the librarian was so kind. When she found out that I could read and read well, she let me check out more than two books at a time to read. She knew that two books might last me a day or less if they were small.

I got the only discipline of my life in school, while reading books. It was 3rd grade and my teacher was Mrs. Cannon. She was a tall, dignified character of a woman and one day she asked us to change from our History Book to our Math book and I didn't hear her, because I was immersed in reading about History.

I was concentrating so hard that I missed her walking up to my desk and looking at me. She had called my name to get my attention and still I was reading, When she got to me, she told me that I did not listen to her and change my book. I was mortified that all of the attention was on me. Then she asked me to hold out my hand, which I promptly did. She struck my hand with a ruler and it hurt so bad. It was only once or twice, but man did it sting. I tried real hard not to cry in front of every body and I never missed the book change again.

Even with that punishment, my desire for reading was not quelled. Donna will tell you that I was often found with my head stuck in a book.

Thankfulness can be toward a person or item and I am so thankful that my Sister Ruby read to me because that opened up a whole new world for me. I hope that tomorrow's children will still want to read and that we will let them.

I read yesterday where a school in Virginia took "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" off the shelves. What a loss that is to the next generation.

Children of today won't know the suffering that African Americans had to go through, if we pull every thing connected to that time away.

If we don't discuss Slavery, the Holocaust. and The Civil War, we do a huge disservice to the next generation. Life is not all rainbows and lollipops for all people.

I will continue to encourage people to read. It helps you discern truth from lies and fact from fiction.

I know that I am surrounded by people that love to read and that makes me happy. So today, I am thankful to that first scribe that put pen to cloth paper and made a manuscript for us to read.... Love to all, Kimmee