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Today, we welcome Momrat as our featured Guest Blogger for Celebrate Reading Month.

About the Guest Blogger: Momrat is a long-time elementary school teacher and a competitive tagsaler. She enjoys long walks on the beach and things her docter has told her absolutely not to eat, particularly ruffled potato chips. She lives in the middle of the woods with her very useful engineer husband, two smelly dogs, and a monster that lurks in the basement.

Before I start talking about TRINITY by Leon Uris and why it was important to me, I should warn you that I read it a long time ago--it must be almost thirty years ago now, because I was on the plane to see your father [Dadrat] in California. I don't actually remember what happens in it. You know how I'm terrible with details like that. I remember that I really loved it, though. I read all his books. I remember that they take place in Ireland, and that it was a real page-turner. That said, I feel it's ok to talk about this book as being one of the most important I've read, and here's why.

I never considered myself a reader. In fact, I considered myself an anti-reader, from the time I was a kid. Whenever a teacher assigned me something to read, I deliberately resisted it, did what I could to get away with not reading it, or made sure I hated it. I never thought that English was my best subject, and honestly I thought I hated reading in general.

When I first met your father [Dadrat] he was always carefully trying to trick me into realizing I liked to read for pleasure. He'd always feed me lines like "Oh, try this one, it will appeal to you for such-and-such specific reason," and he made sure everything he showed me was short, accessible, and as un-scary as possible. I would roll my eyes and then give it a try for his sake, but I still never thought of myself as a reader. I had the impression still that the "serious" readers were the ones who took on the giant tomes, who enjoyed lugging around fat books, who were able to keep track of complex stories with huge words and many plot lines. I didn't think I was destined to be one of those people.

Then one day I was, as I mentioned, stuck on a long plane ride out to California. Not being a reader, I hadn't brought anything to read. But I did get bored--it's a long flight--and I happened to look in the pouch in front of me. There was a sample copy of TRINITY that someone had stuck in there. I'm not sure if it was handed out by the flight attendents or if someone before me had left it there, but it was one of the promotional editions that only contained the first couple hundred pages. And I thought, what the heck. I didn't have anything else to do. I would probably hate it--I'd seen the full version of the book and knew it was one of those huge tomes that only the "serious" readers would dare approach--but it wasn't like I had anything to lose but a couple hours of my time, which I was going to lose anyway.

You know what? I read that thing cover to cover. I could not stop turning those pages. And then when I got off the plane, I went to a bookstore and bought the whole thing.

Even though I don't remember the details of the plots of his books, Leon Uris helped me realize something about myself. He helped me realize that I was a good enough reader to make it through just about anything. I know it sounds silly now in retrospect, but I had grown up thinking I wasn't the kind of person who would ever be a reader, you know, I guess you might say an intellectual. Leon Uris made it clear to me that that distinction was in my mind, and that I actually could be--and was--a serious reader.

Now, as you know, I read all the time. I read to you every night before you went to bed for years. I read to myself every night before bed, and I read all kinds of books of all kinds of lengths. One of my recent favorites, JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL by Susannah Clarke, is a real humdinger of a tome. And you made me read SOUND & THE FURY, which you blogged about yesterday, and I enjoyed that too. Reading books I loved with my kids at school is my favorite part of my job. I love seeing the looks on their faces as they get caught up in the story I'm reading to them, and seeing what it looks like when they realize they are readers, too. But reading Uris was my breakthrough. He helped me have confidence in myself as a reader.

(this post was dictated but not read; MR/mr)

This is how I feel too George.
Its all starting to get to me a little bit now.

The timing for the holiday is a very delicate thing. You start too early, and you're burned out by the time it actually gets here. You start too late, and you're stressed at the last minute. I think I miscalculated this year by a few days, because today, officially, I would like to be done.

I had to go out and do a few things, and was visually assaulted by way too many bad Christmas sweaters and hats and even earrings. I know, I know, I do the 'crafty' thing and should be into appliqued holiday attire (or at least "get it") and I sort of do, in theory, but also, it makes my eyes hurt.

I was wearing a lot of black and my Ralph Lauren red plaid scarf. A man wearing a nice black wool overcoat and smoking a pipe passed by me, and we kind of looked at each other like we each recognized a kindred spirit, then the moment was gone, and the sea of tackiness engulfed us both.

Aren't I fun? But really, everyone have a merry jolly happy whatever. I may not check back in until after its all over. I will leave you with this bit of holiday cheer~
Happy Festivus!