Literacy Heritage

My literacy heritage begins with an old woman who wanted to be an English teacher more than anything, and her dream was never realized: my great-grandmother. Growing up, my mother told me stories of this woman I never met, a woman who would read the letters her grandchildren wrote to her, would correct the grammar, and would send them back with a response. And because, in my child's mind, this woman was great enough to be admired by mother, who I admired greatly, I too worshiped her.

My mother and father never graduated from high school and never went to college. And I don't remember a lot of books in our home. But I do remember watching my mother write letters and learning to write letters at our kitchen table. So when I began to learn to read in school, I came home everyday to sit at the table with my mother and read aloud to her. She would then read stories and tell stories to me. Still, reading remained something I did for school. It wasn't a part of my life.

In third grade, my mom took me to the library for my first library card. Because we had no tv and she worked all day, she wanted me to do something productive, and she wanted me to be more educated than she. I read a few books, but nothing really struck me as particularly interesting until I read a Babysitter's Club book. It was the first book I encountered that I related to: the protagonist's parents were divorced. I had never read a book where the parents were divorced, so I read more.

I began to consume books like food or air, checking out several books at a time. By the time I was in sixth grade, I was reading books like Jane Eyre, Little Women, and Gone with the Wind. And I kept reading. Reading was no longer something I did for school or to please my mom or to live up to my great-grandmother's wishes for her family. It became who I was. And now that I think of it, maybe it began for my mother with her grandmother, but for me, it really began with my mother who, after a double shift, still found time to write with and read to me.