Books Change Lives

Just this morning, received an email that reminded 

me of how much I adored the book club (and library) 

when we (here, I drag my sister into the equation again)

were growing up. And I started to wonder about this.

When was the last time a book changed your life?

All of the books, above, changed mine

(the timeline, here, would be Katie John to 

My Ántonia, just for the record).

I remember each one, clearly,  

and the town we lived in 

(we moved often, to various Army posts;

it was a marvelous education, growing up, 

to live in so many different places)

and what our house looked like at the time

and why the book in question 

changed everything around me.

Almost all of the books we loved were checked out of

some wonderful library, in town or at school, or purchased

from the Scholastic Book Club: the best friends 

two girls (who moved a lot a lot a lot) ever had.

[When we lived in Kansas, Linda and I realized we had
enough book-club-books that we could actually create
(and so we did) our own little library. We even checked
the books out to each other. It was a good thing to spend
our time doing, at nine and seven. We loved it. Think I've
mentioned this before, but I remember her part of the
card catalogue being very, very organized.]

The Scholastic books were affordable, 

packable (ready to move to the next house),

exciting to order, heavenly to receive (from 

the teacher, who handed them out in the classroom)

and very important additions to our little at-home library.

(We both, now, have very big at-home libraries, 

as do our parents.)

And those magnificent parents of ours 

were happy to support our

little (big) book habit. Thank goodness. 

What a difference it has made.

For the rest of our lives.