World Read Aloud Day "Read it Forward" Blogging Challenge

Now and Then

As part of the World Read Aloud Day blogging challenge, Lit World asks us to answer some questions 2 ways. First, as our 10 year old self and second, as our present self.

1. My much younger self would think everyone should read Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? by Judy Blume or the World Book Encyclopedia and Childcraft books that my parents purchased and stored in the shelf above my dad's desk.

My current grown-up self thinks everyone in the world should read Wonder by R.J. Palacio.

2. If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be my 2 children. I would be able to travel back in time whenever I want, to when they were in elementary school and they were just learning to read back in first grade. They are grown now, but I can still hear their little voices reading aloud from a favorite book.

When I was 10 years old I wish that my teachers would have read aloud to me. I am sorry to say my only memory I have of a teacher reading aloud to me is in first or second grade during lunch. She read Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I loved it! My favorite chapter was called "The Radish Seed Cure".

3. I have many favorite characters to impersonate when I am reading aloud to my class of second graders, so I will list a few here!

• the robot voice in Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman. "Affirmative".
• When I read Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant, I love doing the voice of Murray the Bat. Murray provides the comic relief in the story.
• I also enjoy doing the Cajun accents in the Little Red Riding Hood tale called Petite Rouge by Mike Artell.
• And most recently I have enjoyed doing the voice of Lulu in Judith Viorst's books, Lulu and the Brontosaurus and Lulu Walks the Dogs. I am particularly fond of the way I sing her annoying songs.

Although my mom has told me often that I was always very dramatic, I don't remember impersonating any storybook characters!  I can remember gobbling up every Nancy Drew book that I got my hands on. I wanted to be Nancy, with her fashionable clothes and convertible car. I thought she was so smart.

4. The genre that takes up the most room on my classroom bookshelves right now are series books like Mercy Watson and Babymouse.  Picture books are both my personal and professional obsession.  So I have them at home and in my classroom. Young adult Dystopian novels are the genre taking up my e-reader book shelf.

I don't remember having a book shelf as a ten year old, but I do remember riding my very cool golden colored bicycle with the banana seat and monkey handlebars to my neighborhood library. It was a tiny building, no larger than a one car garage and it smelled old and musty inside. My favorite shelves were the encyclopedias! I loved that there were many different ones. I would open the books to a random page to see what I could learn. I also liked looking up different countries and states. The human body and other science topics were of interest too.

5. The last book I read that I wish I wrote was The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.

When I was 10 I loved to draw, so I think I would have preferred to be an illustrator of any well loved picture book.

Well, that was very fun and very challenging to try any go back more that 4 decades to remember myself as a young reader!

Don't forget to celebrate World Read Aloud Day on March 6th!