It’s Summer Reading Season!

Ever since I read my first “chapter book” in 2nd grade (Detective Zack and the Adventure on Thunder Mountain), reading has been a big part of my life. I owe a lot to my mom for reading aloud to me before bed when I was a kid. And post-Detective Zack, emerging from the public library with a chin-high stack of books was a regular occurrence in my life. Searching among the library shelves, I also discovered the stories of Lloyd Alexander, Ursula LeGuin, Madeleine Le’Engle, and others. Multi-volume fantasy series were the mainstay, though the occasional historical fiction novel would also find its way into the mix. First Chronicles of Narnia, then Harry Potter, then Redwall took their places in my pantheon of favorites.

Of course I read Lord of the Rings when I was old enough. Though I think I jumped the gun a bit on that one, because I literally got lost the first time I read it. I mistakenly thought that the mines of Moria were a passage into Mordor, and was confused the whole second book. I was thinking: Why are they wandering around so much? What’s with this random Rohan horse place? Just throw the ring in the volcano already. I re-read it a few years later, when the movies were coming out, and my comprehension was a lot better. There were other series I got into once I was old enough for them as well: Garth Nix’s Sabriel, the Bartemaeus Trilogy, Mistborn (well, in that case, the series just wasn’t written until I was older).