This week’s Monday Memories is all about books! My story is a short, but sweet one…and by sweet, I mean I had a teacher who didn’t know who she was dealing with…and by that, clearly I mean my mom.
(Note to Mom: If I get this wrong according to the story in your head…just you know…keep it to yourself 😉 )
In 3rd grade, back when I didn’t have a large collection of chapter books for kids, I would read children’s books. Rapidly. I mean, I also chewed through Ramona Quimby, Fudge, Roald Dahl, The Babysitters Club, and other kid-themed books faster than a lot of kids…But sometimes, I would read several books in one night. Especially if they were my Little Golden Books.
There was all that Book-It stuff in which you got free Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas for reading books. And we got extra credit for the more books we read. I’ve always been a fan of extra credit. Always. Of course, upon reporting these to my 3rd grade teacher, she thought I was making shit up.
When my parents went in for parent teacher conferences? She told them I was a liar and had a problem. So my mom asked, what does she lie about. She says she reads all of these books and it’s impossible to read that much. (Bad teachers don’t do research on the names of the books that kids are reading. Bad teachers assume that the kids are telling the truth that the book titles they list exist, unless of course, there are too many books on the list. THEN, those kids are liars. Bad teachers tell parents that they’re doing a piss poor job of raising a kid who stays up late at night to read books instead of sleep.)
I’m pretty sure my mom went off on her. She was already holding a grudge that I wasn’t in the “gifted” program at school. I just made my own gifted program. By reading more than anyone else. Whatevs. I was reading flipping picture books and writing that shit down. Documentation, my friends. Documentation.
Speaking of which, I wish I still had that shit.
Want more bookish memories? Go visit Lily over at It’s a Dome Life. I swear she and I are kindred spirits. If you like me, you’ll love her!
14 Responses
I love that chair and that your Grandma gave it to you. That is so cool. I hope your mom set that teacher straight. Now I am angry you weren’t in the gifted program too. It’s truly hard to believe you weren’t. Morons! You’re like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” when she goes back to the store to shop and says, “Big Mistake!” Except, you are doing it with your smarts and awesomeness instead of, ya know, prostitution.
YA! That. Is. Right. (Definitely minus the prostitution…shoooot)
Luckily, I came from a family where my mother saved everything. All the way from books with poems and short stories from the Victorians to *Uncle Wiggley and His Friends* and of course Jack London’s kids books: *Before Adam*, *White Fang*, and Uncle Remus’s *The Tar Baby*. Much more interesting stuff than doing arithmetic worksheets and working on my penmanship which was awful.
That. Is. Awesome. We still have the Uncle Remus book…my dad did all of the voices!
“Da tar baby. . . he don’t say nothin’!”
But if he did, my dad would have rocked that voice!
Ha! My teachers always questioned whether or not I was making things up too!
LMAO…the question is: Were you? 😉
The Babysitter’s Club!!! OMG, I had every.single.one. I was sad many years later when my mom gave them to the neighbor who had a younger daughter.
What a beautiful chair, even more beautiful because of the sentimental value.
Yes! Me too! I wish I knew what happened to them.
Ya, it’s a pretty awesome chair.
The armchair looks so cool! Must have been really comfortable while devouring all these books then! 🙂
I read a lot when I was younger, even few years back from now…But the books were in my native language (Polish) so it wouldn’t give you any hint 😉 But I did read Ann of Green Gables several times (and all the parts!). I loved it.
A couple of days ago I discovered a new writer that I adore – Marina Lewycka. Her books are hilarious! Especially “Various Pets Alive and Dead” but her first novel, “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” is fun, too.
Thanks! It’s amazingly comfortable-even now. It’s still my reading chair 🙂
I LOOOOOVED Anne of Green Gables!
I will look into Lewycka!
That teacher was a nut case. Good thing I didn’t have any teachers like that because I was an avid reader too (although as soon as I hit chapter books I never looked back, so I never won the “most books read” award because I was reading War Horse while my friends were reading picture books. Oh well.)
Ha! I loved going back and reading my “little kid” books. But I was a fan of the numbers game. “I read 10 books last night!”