That time my parents gifted me wall to wall bookshelves & the time that they regretted it

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's question was a freebie around the idea of "Outrageous Things I’ve Done for the Love of Books". I've waited in line for Harry Potter books, stayed up way too late reading, and always have my Kindle with me. Always. I don't think anything of these things are particularly outrageous, possibly quirky, definitely normal. Since it's a freebie, I tried to think of big reading related moments that have stuck with me. Then I narrowed it down to two. (I got in trouble a lot for reading when I wasn't supposed to or ignoring my family so I could read.)

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Merry Christmas, here's a book shelf.

I must have been in fourth grade when my parents had floor to ceiling shelves that spanned one side of my room built for me. I had a large window in the middle of that wall and they added a window seat. I wish I could find pictures of this, I even looked up the old house on Zillow - they tore out the shelves!!! Custom built shelves! I am so sad.

These shelves were a Christmas present. Normally that would be a weird gift for a kid, but book shelves and a window seat - perfect gift for a book worm. I remember the night the shelves were installed because my sister and I were being babysat by a family friend. It was super boring: her kids had moved out long ago, so there were no toys, no tv, and we had not come prepared to entertain ourselves. I just remember being really tired and bored and wanting to go home. This couldn't have been Christmas Eve, because there's no way mom would have let us skip mass and our family traditions. It must have been the 23rd, but I'm not sure how they managed to keep me out of my room for so long. I'm pretty sure they conned me into sleeping in my sister's room because she was having "bad dreams".

I do remember Christmas morning, we had opened several presents and mom told me to run to my closet and pull out a present for dad that we had hidden in there. I ran in, grabbed the gift, and ran right back to the living room. (Apparently my powers of observation have always been lacking.) They sent me back to my room to "take another look", and there I saw it. This is always such a sunlit memory for me: it was a bright sunny morning, the blinds were open, the shelves were and walls were white so light just bounced around. I ran around screaming and spent the rest of the day organizing and decorating. God, I loved those shelves. Room for all of my series, my encyclopedias (because I'm super old), and all of my knick knacks. And a reading nook! Eventually I will have something like this again.

How do you ground a kid who wants to stay inside and read?

I didn't get in trouble often, but when I did it required a Response. My parents had been frustrated that grounding didn't work because I was totally ok staying in and reading. I missed spending time with my best friend, but generally I was cool with it. Mom came up with the great idea of taking away all of my books. Bwah ha ha ha! Boy, did they quickly regret that one! It took most of the morning and filled up dad's office down stairs. On the downside, they found most of my candy stash (Claudia from the Babysitters Club was a big inspiration) and punishments were more creative and evil moving forward. (Also, all of those punishments were because of reading.) Dad still tells this story, he was so bewildered by the number of books, the time suck of moving them, and the discomfort having to work in the book jail. Poor man was traumatized.

Just a portion of my unpacked books from the last move

We have moved a lot over the years, and I have been really stubborn about letting go of books. With our last move I finally looked at my personal library and decided some of these things didn't bring me joy. I didn't like them, wasn't going to reread them, didn't particularly find them attractive, didn't want to save them for the kids, and I didn't have any memories attached to them. I pulled out a lot of stuff and donated it to libraries, shelters, or sold it to Half Price Books. I'm happy to report I regret nothing.

Funny thing, my parents moved while I was in college. My room was packed up and boxes were tucked away in the new house. Nobody kept track of them because mom was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the move. Over the years I've wondered what happened to the bulk of my books. My nephew had of course found my original comic book collection and some of my picture books. My antique book collection had been moved and stored on their own, so I always knew where they were. I finally found the missing book boxes last summer. Unfortunately I found them as were were packing the car to return home. I'm looking forward to cracking into those boxes this summer.

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