Reopened book (“Blizzard’s Wake”).  Photo by Katelyn Avery.

The pages hold an aroma only described by “old and stored away”. It’s not a bad smell by any means, actually it pulls me in. I want to learn more about this book. “Blizzard’s Wake” is the name, and it’s by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I knew this book once, and the story dances in the back of my mind. A faint memory that I can half retrieve. I would like to get acquainted with each word again.

Please don’t listen the negative hype, millennials’ do read. School makes sure of that. However, it’s pleasure reading that we lack. I broke that habit about a month ago with a copy of “Junior”, written by Macaulay Culkin (Actor from Home Alone). The pages flipped away, and I finished the story in one day. This was in part due to its fast paced nature and “fresh” writing style, but it was also because I hadn’t been hitched to a book in a long time.

I loved reading as a kid. It was almost better than TV or the computer for me. My current book of choice would be like a husband to me, always on my mind and in the best care. Although with that metaphor I’m either a polygamist or I’ve been divorced many times.

 One of my bookshelves. Photo by Katelyn Avery.

High school academics slowly pushed pleasure reading out of my life, and college classes gave it the semi-final boot. Pleasure reading and I never made a definite split though. We just took breaks. I did read before “Junior” came into my life. “Sunrise Over Fallujah”, by Walter Dean Meyers, was the first and only non-school related book I purchased while in community college. A bookstore was finally in the mall again, and I had to support them.

While I have two new books of my own, and anything my sister buys, I can’t always spend money. Ah, the problems of the young. Luckily my bookshelves still house some older books. Some are even from my middle school years. I had a few mature choices, so it’s not awful to go back to them. Most of the pages haven’t seen light for 5 or 6 years.

“Blizzard’s Wake” will be the first book to take part of the reopened pages event. Only books I choose to read are aloud. This event has no end date for now, because I don’t want to stop reading. Even when I finish the old books, I will hopefully have saved enough to invite more into my life. The library may also call my name, but I don’t always like temporary relationships. It’s back to the purchased books for now, with a smile on my face.

-Katelyn Avery

443 words

*I am in no way affiliated with the books mentioned or photographed. I do not own the  books, and I do not represent the authors mentioned. No copyright infringement intended.