How I Made the Switch...

I know many people out there struggle with reading YA books over adult books, thinking that perhaps they aren't intellectual enough or are just for kids.  I have one teacher here at my school who will come in for her "guilty pleasures" and will literally hide them from everyone when she returns them.  I tell her it's okay, but since she is an English teacher I guess she feels guilty or something, I am not sure.

So, I am going to tell the story of how I switched to reading almost exclusively YA & MG books, the book that made me make the switch and why I don't feel any guilt at all.

I had always had an interest in books written for younger people--young adult and middle grade and since my kids were little at this time, picture books as well. For a few years early on in my career I bounced around from school to school, wherever they needed me, just happy to have a job (this was back when I taught kindergarten).  Of course, I still read the occasional YA or MG book, I mean, this was when Harry Potter was first being published!  It just wasn't what made up the bulk of my reading.

I started at a new school, and as was my way, made friends first with the librarian.  One day I was hanging out in the library when she was going through some new books.  (It's funny but she was the first librarian in an elementary school who seemed to actually read the books in her library so she and I could chat about books we had read and books I should read). 

I saw the shiny cover for The Penderwicks and decided to take it home and read it.  LOVED it!!  It is still one of my absolute favorites!  It made me nostalgic for the books I remember reading when I was young and I realized I liked that feeling.  I liked it a lot!  I took home another stack over Christmas break and when I got done with them decided that this was my kind of reading.  I was going to give it a year and just read MG and YA. 

Ten years later, that is still where I am at and I couldn't be happier.  I read the occasional adult book now, but mostly they don't affect me the way books written for younger audiences do.  They keep me young!

What book did it for you?