I grew up on a lot of books. My family believed that reading a ton of books would make me super smart or something. Unfortunately, I don’t even remember reading half of them. Short-term memory sucks. So I got a little nervous when this assignment was given because there was no way I was going to remember enough of the first book I read to write a paper. I don’t even remember what the name of it is, only that it was like a story about Christmas and it showed the same picture of Santa Claus on his sleigh on about 5 pages in different colors. The earliest book I can recall at least the title of was one of those little My First Bibles, I think. Even then I only remember a yellow plastic cover, cardboard pages, and the stories of Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel. That’s pretty much it. Thankfully, we’re allowed can talk about a memorable book from later in life. For me, that is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The entire series is amazing but this one stood out the most for me. The first thing is that it was the final book in the series and I remember being super excited to read it. If I remember correctly, I only had to mention it once since my family knew from past experiences that I was going to bug them till they bought it. The second thing that made this book so memorable was the deaths. The series is no stranger to death and I still remember all of the other deaths vividly, but the deaths in this one were so devastating. I mean Hedwig was the very first death! The little bird that the entire fandom had come to love bit the dust because she protected Harry! I was not prepared for that when I first read the book. Then the deaths kept coming. Moody dies not long after Hedwig, then the Minister of Magic (whom I may add, I at least hadn’t heard of until the book just before this one) is killed at a wedding, and even Dobby is murdered by my favorite villain, Bellatrix! That was disturbing to say the least. When I learned Fred (or was it George), Tonks, and Lupin died as well I had to put the book down for weeks. That’s when I realized even my favorite characters could be killed in stories, which makes me wonder why I’m still so upset about the last Game of Thrones episode.

Adrian Cherry

From what I can remember, the book that really brings me back to my child hood is “Guess how much I love you” by Anita Jeram. I was too young to read at this time but I remember just about everyone in my house reading it to me but especially my dad. It was my favorite book because it was about a young hare and his daddy. I was a complete daddy’s girls growing up, being the youngest of four (two boys and two girls) it was really special to me to get time to read with my dad. I would picture myself being the little hare and of course my dad being the big hare. My parents were divorced so even when I was not staying at my dad’s I knew how much he loved me because he told me so. He would buy me books from the school book fair growing up and take me to the big book store in town with my siblings as we all got older. My dad always encouraged me to read and to be smart. He always said that “pretty girls don’t need to fake smart they need to be smart”. This really impacted me through my years of school but now that I am older I can really look back on how thankful I am for his guidance in my younger years. My love for learning, reading and exploring this world came from him. If I did not have the opportunity to be read “Guess how much I love you”, I might not have fallen in love with literature and wouldn’t have the desire to become an educator. No matter how simple Jeram’s book is, it impacted my life and is a part of very special memories with my dad.