Every Book is a Link in the Chain--By Kimberly Sabatini

This blog post should be easy, but I'm finding this a ridiculously hard to write. My goal today (by 2am this morning and it's now 10am) is to blog about the first character, book, or author I fell in love with.

It's not that I'm having trouble remembering the first, if anything I'm having trouble remembering back far enough. In fact, I'm sure I must've fallen in love with whatever books I may have been listening to back in utero. Book adoration feels as if it's twisted into my DNA.

But the problem I'm also running into is that there have been firsts, great loves and influences at every stage of both my growth and my journey as a reader. So, rather than continue to sit here and wrestle with which one to pick--a montage it is.

This was one of my earliest favorites and I kept reading it long after it I was reading much older things. But I also continued to progress in how I read about dance because I loved it so much.

I read this so often I'm surprised it still has pages.

And there were other dance books in this series that I read over and over again.

Then I moved to these. 

And eventually this one. <3

But I wasn't a one trick pony and my interests were diverse.

 Encyclopedia Brown kicked off my love of detectives and mystery. Which was followed up by...

Oh how I loved Trixie and her gang! 

And...

Which led to endless hours of playing this...

Charlie's Angels!!!!! 

And of course I continue to be fascinated by plots that have corners I can not see around. 

And maybe I always had a taste for trying to solve things...

I had an epic stack of Dr. Seuss books and I attribute any ability I have to rhyme to the Doc and his interesting friends. And because of him I'm also a big fan of making up my own words when I see fit LOL! But Dr. Suess' books functioned on multiple levels and  I think of his books as a jumping off points for my love of books with social conscious. I devoured these over and over again...

I think my desire to write about things I believe to be important and relevant, comes from the tree stump of the Lorax and was fueled by the bravery of not just these stories, but by their authors. 

And as I look up, I realize another hour has gone by and the more I think about influential books, characters and authors, the more reading material rises up from my memory to become links in the chain that's connected me to this...

The truth is...every word read has had an influence. I have no regrets accept wishing I'd read more.