My Reading Journey

Sometimes it’s easy to forget what kind of reader I used to be in the past and the variety of books I enjoyed at different ages. This is especially true as I’ve grown to develop a strong taste and distaste for certain books, which has certainly changed the way I see stories. I was surprised to look back and find so many books that I love, and others that I used to love when I was younger.

This is such a great example of how your reading will reflect what you need at that time. Every stage of your reading journey points toward the next one. You don’t stop with Beverly Clearly, but go on to discover Little Women, and A Fall of Marigolds. Every stage is the stepping stone to the next one, and if a book is propelling your reading journey forward it’s doing its job.

(That’s probably good for me to hear, since I’m so easily critical of children’s books. I will continue to have standards, but I can remember that just because a book is no good to me does not mean it will not be a help to someone else)

In this post I’m going to walk you through my reading journey to date. I’ll share the books I was reading at different times of my life as well as some thoughts on what books should offer for that age.

Before beginning, a word on ages. I’ve sorted the books I read as a child into a list of several different groups which I’ve made below. But I’m most certainly not intending to say that when a child is one age these are the books they ought to be reading. Instead, I’ve come up with some basic reading levels.

Pre-Reader

So a little confession here before we begin. I was not the most enthusiastic reader. You know the stories of kids who practically taught themselves to read? Yeah, that wasn’t me. I was very much against learning to read and gave my mom a terrible time teaching me. 😉

But that didn’t mean I hated books! My mom would read aloud many picture books to me, and I even remember getting through a couple chapter books as well. At this age you’re mostly reading with a parent or older sibling (though audio books can be wonderful too!), so there is a lot of potential. Good quality books that both the child and parent will enjoy are perfect, and almost anything works.

• Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
• Corturoy, by Don Freeman
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff

Early Chapter Books

The amount of books I read at this stage is staggering, as I had made it through the early reader books and started books with chapters. By now I was fully capable of reading through books and I took full advantage of that ability. My book log is full of pages of books by the same author or from the same series. This was also when I first began keeping a book log, so I’m able to look back on this time of my writing journey.

Short, easy books of great quantity are perfect for this time in a reader’s life. The point of these books is to give readers a taste of finding their own books and what they enjoy. After years of being read to and listening to the voice of others, now it’s their time to experience reading for themselves.

• The American Girl books
• Ramona Quimby, Age 8, by Beverly Cleary
• Matilda, by Roald Dahl

Middle Grade

Looking back, I actually read quite a number of middle grade fantasy series, most of which I don’t care for today. I also found a lot of early chapter books still in the mix (usually picked up after my younger sister had read them). All in all, this was a pretty sportatic reading time in my life. The books listed are all ones that I enjoyed greatly then and would not be against returning to now.

The important point here is that this is the time to enjoy reading. Almost all the books I read at this time (there are exceptions, of course) I no longer find appealing now. But that was not what mattered. Building a simple habit of picking up books as an activity will build as you grow older and dapple in more significant stories.

• Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters, by Diane Zahler
• Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George

Reaching Maturity

I began to cross the gap between books geared at younger readers to books meant for story lovers when I was an early teen. At this time you can see a giant jump in the quality of the books I was reading. This happened to be summer of 2020, so I had plenty of time to devote to my new love of books. I discovered some of my favorite books of all time in these years, and it was also when I began taking more time to pour into my writing (which makes sense).

This is the time to dive head over heels into good, solid stories, as this is where a true love of stories (not just the act of reading) begins. Here are a few of my absolute favorites!

• Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
• Sweep, by Jonathan Auxier
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

Final Thoughts

Every person has a different reading journey, and it was wonderful to think back on my own today. I’m so glad for the love of stories I have today and the way it affects my life.

Did you enjoy reading today’s post? What books shaped your reading life?