Booking Through Thursday #2

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Booking Through Thursday.

Childhood vs. Adult

Have your reading habits changed since you were a child? (I mean, I’m assuming you have less time to read now, but …) Did you devour and absorb books when you were 10 and only just lightly read them now? Did you re-read frequently as a child but now only read new books? How about types of books? Do you find yourself still attracted to the kinds of books you read when you were a kid?

When I was a kid, my hometown's local library was about the size of a camper-trailer. Seriously, it was tiny. I never knew it was there because there were no signs pointing out the obvious and I never even set foot in it until I was well into my teens, right before they started building a new one. But when I was little, I would visit my aunt and cousins for a couple of weeks during the summer and we would take special trips to her enormous library and I would check out countless books (usually having to do with unicorns which I don't care to read about anymore). So other than during the summer and at school, I didn't really have access to a ton of books. My sisters and I had our own little collections and I spent a lot of well earned birthday or Christmas money on books. I asked for books for those holidays as well and sometimes received one or two. I loved to read at a very young age and tried to devour books as often as possibly. I had no encouragement and no one really made comments about how much I liked to read so I came to see it as my own special little passion in life. As an adult, I still devour books and see reading as the one thing that I can do non-stop and never get bored of. At least now I can share my love for books and not be ridiculed by my peers.

I had a certain amount of books that I loved and re-read all the time as a young child, such as My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, etc. As I got a little older it was books like the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, or The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. I don't particularly like re-reading books now unless it's a childhood favorite that I want to revisit or if it's a book I haven't read in a very long time and a movie adaptation is coming out soon (for example: The Hobbit. I read it in 6th grade and I plan on re-reading it later on this year before the second half of the movie is released in theaters). I can see myself re-reading certain books in the future that I've read recently, but for now there are just sooo many books out there that I haven't read that I'd like to focus on discovering new ones.

I was obsessed with ghost stories as a kid. I devoured as many as I could get my hands on and when I couldn't find anything resembling a ghost story, I moved on to 'scary' stories such as the Goosebumps and Fear Street books by R.L. Stine. Anything to do with a monster, a creepy house, dolls that came to life, and even early paranormal books about shapeshifters and vampires appealed to me. While I still love a good ghost story,  I don't really read the adult version of Fear Street books where perhaps there is a murder that needs solved or a suspense thriller sort of book where someone is running from a killer. I just don't really read those types of books anymore unless it's a good paranormal romance type of book.

I tend to enjoy fantasy the most these days. I don't know where it stems from. Maybe it stems from the unicorn books I read, Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, or my love for all things mysteriously magical and the very vivid imagination I had as a child. I'm not ready to 'grow up' and set those things aside. I think that, as an artist, I will always want to read about and create things that aren't necessarily available to us in this world/reality.

So overall, I think I do still enjoy things that I enjoyed as a child but I've also branched out to reading the classics (which I also enjoy VERY much) and some contemporary fiction. Truthfully, I just hope I don't end up reading those steamy erotic romances with the shirtless guys on the covers or murder-mysteries about fake serial killers like all the elderly folks read in this town. I probably don't have to worry about that though because I'm pretty sure I'm stuck in my own little literary ways. :)