I love to read. I mean, I LOVE it. I always have. By the time I was eleven years old I had read every single Nancy Drew Mystery in my public library system. I say system because my town has two libraries and I devoured the books in both.
I. Loved. Nancy. Drew.
Unfortunately, my siblings did not share my enthusiasm for the written word. Luckily I was bigger and stronger at the time so they kept their puny little mouths shut. It took a few years, but my younger sister finally succumbed to my teachings, though she wasn't as into Nance and her powder blue convertible as I was. I'd take it. My brother... Well at this point I'd considered him a lost cause.
Then something magical happened.
One month and twenty four days shy of his seventeenth birthday, I come into my family's house and see my brother on the couch. At first I was confused. Where were the sounds of idiotic cartoons, fighting men, or other typical boy television? Why was it silent?
"Are you in trouble?" I immediately asked.
"Nope."
I just stared at him as I noticed what was in his hand. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. Aka, a book. A BOOK! HE WAS VOLUNTARILY READING A BOOK!
I tried to ask him what made him read it but I promptly got shushed before he went outside and posted up in my favorite reading spot on the deck (one that I claimed over a decade ago, thank you very much).
It must have been a fluke, right? Just some weird mood that he was in.
Lo and behold, a few days later he comes into my room with a question that brought tears to my eyes: "Hey, can I borrow the second Harry Potter?"
Yes, Grasshopper. Yes you may.
