After a long day of third grade, I was sitting at the window expectantly, pestering my mom every ten minutes or so to ask when Grandma would be arriving from Pennsylvania. Her response never seemed to change: “Probably about an hour, Wyatt. You should go do something else while you wait instead of just staring outside.” I was not fooled, however: I knew that she would pull up into the driveway any second. Much like my mom, this thought would not change, even after two hours of looking out the window. How could I do anything else? I was more than ready for Grandma’s hugs, her attention, and her cookies. I couldn’t wait to show off my LEGOs and go to the zoo. But none of that was really what I was looking forward to. What I was truly excited for was the pile of books in Grandma’s trunk.

My grandma was, and still is, a librarian, and I knew that whenever she arrived, she would arrive with a suitcase full of advance reader’s copies, ready for whichever grandchild was lucky enough to receive them. The second she parked her car, I grabbed as many books as I could carry, dashed up to my room, locked myself in, and got right down to business. These books were especially meaningful to me. If you don’t know, librarians get advance copies of many books, intended for them to take a look at in order to consider putting the finished work in their own library. Each one has a release date on the spine, and I knew that I just had to get through as many of these books as I could before this deadline. It was as if each novel came with an expiration date: it wasn’t the same when I didn’t feel like I was getting to experience a whole world before all the other grade schoolers around the planet. I just got such a huge sense of pride from every book that I finished before its release. Of course, there’s a reason the book wasn’t out yet, and that was often because the publishing company was not finished editing the book, but that didn’t scare me off. Instead, I scoured every page just to find each typo within the story, though, looking back, I only ever remember finding two or three mistakes throughout my years of reading.

My grandma knew I loved these books, so that’s why she always traveled with a stash of them. She never really knew exactly what I liked to read, so she just gave me a tower of paper, and I got to pick and choose what looked interesting to me. Honestly, every time she handed over all the books, I knew there were a few that I would just never read and would be delegated to shelf duty for the rest of their existence. But that was always okay, as reading was always a choice. I loved reading because I was able to discover characters I saw myself in, and find tales that appealed to me. When my mom took me to the library, I recognized that not every book was written for me, and I couldn’t even read every book in there even if I wanted to. It was up to me to pick out the stories that I wanted to discover and remember forever. I couldn’t choose what questions I had to answer from the social studies textbook, but I knew that when I read, I could always choose how I would lose myself.

But as middle school rolled around, I lost that privilege. Reading had been my favorite thing because I found characters I loved and had the freedom to explore them on my own. This changed as reading became a punishment, a schedule of chapters to read for the night. The books my teachers made me read were filled with protagonists I despised, whose moral codes were questionable at best. All English class in middle school really did for me was push my love of reading away from me. I wish I could now go back to the joy of reading from my childhood years, but it seems I won’t be able to, as long as my homework keeps piling up as it does and all I have time to read is what I am required to for class. I long for the sense of freedom reading gave me as a child, but I don’t think I will ever be able get back that feeling of anticipation and curiosity that reading used to give me.