I’ve always called myself a reader. Ever since I learned to read, I think it might be fair to say I spent at least two-thirds of my childhood reading. Through middle school, high school and my subsequent gap year, it was always the first escape I turned to when I’d have an evening free.
I didn’t understand it when I’d hear someone say that they used to read a ton growing up, but now they just didn’t prioritize it. Then it suddenly seemed to happen to me, somewhere along my time in college. I realized this during my semester abroad in London last year, as I was making my walk back to our dorms from class. I used to take the longer routes, winding around the city just to enjoy getting lost in the crowds and streets. I started frequenting stops at bookstores along the way, sometimes spending close to an hour browsing and sometimes leaving with three paperbacks. Then I realized how little I had been reading the last few years. It may have been the busy schedule or the dopamine receptors I was frying with my increased dependence on social media and on-demand TV.
Let my stance, then, on bookstores be known — they are vital environments for fostering a dedication to reading. For me, simply being surrounded by spaces dedicated to the appreciation of physical books almost immediately piqued my interest to get reading again. Suffice to say the walkability of South Bend limits our ability to roam around and stumble into a bookstore, and I almost exclusively drive when I’m home in Seoul and never spend much time strolling around. Regardless, I give credit for my rededication to reading to the presence of bookstores. Don’t ask me how I feel about the fact that more than half the independent bookstores in the States have gone out of business in the last twenty years.
I was thinking about when I first fell in love with reading, and it indisputably goes back to the picture books from my early childhood. Some of them I was so emotionally attached to I could nearly still recite pages on end from the countless times my parents had to recite them to me.
Here are the top five most important picture books of my life, ranked.
1. “The Nutcracker” by E.T.A Hoffmann
This one means so much to me. Front to back, I memorized this book line by line, and my grandmother still recounts the time she came over and I plopped open the book and recited it, having memorized it down to each page turn without knowing how to read a single word. I never lost my obsession with the story, and beauty and music of Tchaikovsky’s ballet.
2. “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak
The art would completely captivate me, and every night I ardently wished that I would be whisked away from my bed in a floaty dream cloud world of giant cakes and cups of milk.
3. “The War” by Anaïs Vaugelade
This one is a bit peculiar in retrospect. It has a very deep message about the futility of war and violence and shows how conflicts could be better handled with open communication. It actually kind of checks out given my avoidance of passive aggression and needless elevations. It’s all about maintaining peace and balance – I’m a Libra, after all.
4. “The Hundred Dresses” by Eleanor Estes
It had a lovely message about friendship and kindness, and the importance of understanding each other’s differences. Of course, one of my favorite parts was the illustration of a hundred dresses.
5. “The Princess and the Pea” by Hans Christian Andersen
What a cute tale. I can’t entirely relate to it because I’m quite the deep sleeper, but maybe this is where I got my picky needs to have the environment of my bedroom check very specific boxes — I can be annoying about temperature, sheets, humidity, and white noise.
Sharing this list feels like a very intimate disclosure. These and many more picture books are what first excited me to read and write. My hyperfixation on these books is what turned into years of reading — it was the same kind of escape, and eventually, the books would actually lose the pictures and become longer.
It’s only recently that I think reading has gone back to feeling like an indulgence rather than a task. Remembering how excited I would get to jump into bed with one of these picture books makes me similarly eager to make my way down my Goodreads list. Anyone who has lost their affection for reading could benefit from going back in time to recall their very first books.
