As far as I can remember, I have always loved books. Some of my favorite books when I was younger were the Beatrix Potter books, specifically Peter Rabbit and mostlyThe Tale of Tom Kitten. My mom got me the complete tales of Peter Rabbit book set that was only 21mm. I consistently read The Tale of Tom Kitten, which was probably the start of my obsession with cats.
For certain holidays, my siblings and I would play hot and cold. My mom would hide a dollar, and at the end of the holiday, we would take our collected dollars and bring them to Barnes and Noble. I would scour the store for any cat books I could find. My mom had to tell me this part when I got older, but she told me that I would reach up on my tippy toes and not so gently place my money on the counter to buy books.
Even as an adult, I still enjoy losing myself in a book. Around 2014, I stumbled onto the world of book blogging. Like song lyrics, I always enjoyed specific lines in the books I read. I could never really explain why I liked the specific lines, but there was always some aspect of the quote that caught my attention.
Little by little, I began building my book review blog called “Living in a World of Book Quotes”. From there, I began attending book conventions such as Book Con, where I ended up meeting so many readers, bloggers, and authors with varying personalities. My mom ended up coming with me, and neither of us could believe that I was comfortable being able to go up to so many people and talk about books. I ended up going to about three or four bookcons and was even able to attend a book convention for five days straight to help an independent author at their booth, helping to sell their books. Even though the book events have slowed down a bit, I still try my best to attend any local book events and keep up with reading in my own time.
Books seem to be my safe haven. At the beginning of this school year, reading became my refuge. I was reeling with the loss of my Shepard mix, Tate and I would disappear into reading, wearing my noise-canceling headphones to drown out the noise in my head in an attempt to not think about losing her. I slowly had to accept she was gone and eventually didn’t need to wear my noise-canceling headphones.
Two weeks ago, it was the 12th annual National Independent Bookstore Day/weekend. My friend and I went to Possible Futures in New Haven for the third bookstore. This bookstore is unique in that it serves as a community space for individuals to be themselves, offering services and programmes for those in education. They also feature local artists at their store. Unbeknownst to my friend and I, there ended up being a middle-grade author who was scheduled to discuss the importance of books in the community and book signing.
The author was Torrey Maldonado. This author grew up in the housing projects in Brooklyn and is a 25-year teaching veteran in the NYC public school system. He has to be one of the most engaging speakers I have come across. What stuck with me about what he said is that books should be a safe place for anyone. He went on to say that if a child does not feel “safe” or comfortable with a book, there’s less of a chance they will try to read a book. He made this connection to being a teacher in the classroom. If any of his students did not feel safe in his classroom, they would be less likely to thrive in the classroom and find success. What he said hit me. The books I have felt safe or comfortable with have made the most impact on me. I never imagined that someone who was always shy and quiet would become a children’s author, have chance to read manuscripts of independent authors, be in the acknowledgments section of YA books, making pictures of my favorite quotes to help promote books and the best of all was finding out that one of the authors who was rewriting one of her books ended up renaming a character after me.
I hope you were able to enjoy why I love books so much, how books can make one feel safe, and how much books have and will always make an impact in my life.
Living in a World of Book Quotes 