Hey, I'm just started reading I Love You, Beth Cooper!

So far it is cringe-makin' fun! And by a local author. I think he used to write for the Simpsons?

I didn't go to his signing at my friends' store but I got a signed copy anyway. It's signed "I love you, too!"

awww

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My mother would tell me to play outside, so I'd just take my book outside. Her main method of reducing my reading was to only drive me to the library every two weeks. This meant that once I'd read all the library books and still had horrible empty days ahead of me, I'd scrounge books wherever I could find them. That's why I read all my parents' books, even though they ran to thinks like Keys to the Kingdom; the encyclopedia; all my friends' series books; and books about Christian martyrs and missionaries from the church library.

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Her main method of reducing my reading was to only drive me to the library every two weeks.

So sad!!! We had a library easy walking distance in the town I lived in until I was 11. And one of the great highlights of visiting my grandparents in their tiny town in Texas was our trips to the library. We went almost every day. (And we'd stay down there visiting for 3-4 weeks at a time)

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We weren't in walking distance to the library anywhere we lived. I was not particularly interested in driving, except that my license meant I could drive myself to the library. Several places were, at least, in walking distance of comic stores.

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I'd scrounge books wherever I could find them

That's how I discovered the home medical guide tucked in the corner of the bookcase and how I learned about the mechanisms of sex. We had an old bookcase full of 1950s Encyclopedia Britannicas that I wasn't allowed to mess with, or else I'd have been bookworming my way through those.

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My only childhood reading issue is that I'd bring a book into the bathroom with me, and then get caught up in reading, so they thought I was constipated all the time. Nope! Just reading!

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Shorewood finally opened a branch library in a storefront when I was ten or so, and it was only a mile or so away, so I could walk or ride my bike there. I started volunteering after going there so often that the librarian knew my name in a matter of days. I'd shelve, check out books, dust, whatever, to be able to hang around the room all day.

It was still fun heading to the downtown library on occasion--it had marble stairs and big marble columns in the entryway, and really tall ceilings. A very impressive building.

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I guess I remember a lot from childhood. Most of it is stuff that was scary or exciting or notable in some way, but there's a lot of random crap in there, too. Games we played at recess, odd conversations with other kids. I remember the names of my preschool teachers, but not what they looked like. They had those cool wooden train sets, though. I remember the train sets pretty vividly.

I think my mom would have liked me to have more friends, but I was never told not to read.

As is so often the case, Jessica is me. I think my mom would occasionally suggest putting the book down for five minutes while I emptied the dishwasher, because I'd be walking through the kitchen & dining room carrying plates in one hand and a paperback in the other. But I kept doing it anyway.

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My only childhood reading issue is that I'd bring a book into the bathroom with me, and then get caught up in reading, so they thought I was constipated all the time. Nope! Just reading!

Heh, we used to refer to the bathroom as "the reading room" in my family (as in "Hey, I'll be in the reading room"). With 2 bathrooms for 8 kids (though that was only an issue during holidays due to the age differences) it could get tricky.

Which brings to mind a question: who else keeps a basket or other container of reading material in their bathrooms?

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who else keeps a basket or other container of reading material in their bathrooms?

That's what the top of the dryer is for.

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