a mild mannered reader an account of the books & literature

that impacted my life

PRESENTED BY:

mike havener

Chapter One:

my humble beginnings

I grew up in Illiopolis, IL which was (and still is) a speck on the map just outside of Springfield. I have three sisters. It wasn’t always easy being the only boy, but I had a pretty awesome childhood! I was raised in a family of readers, and had plenty of books at home. One of my earliest memories of a book was one of my dad’s dusty old westerns. I couldn’t read the words at the time, but for some reason the image of the cowboy on the cover stuck with me over the

years.

Chapter Two:

the first book I’ll never forget

The first book I ever read was Curious George, but it doesn’t really count. My mom had read it to me so many times that I just memorized the words that corresponded to the pictures on each page. Curious George was always my favorite in my preschool years, and my mom made sure our bookshelf was stocked with his adventures. It’s weird to think about it now, but H.A. Rey wrote some of the first words I ever sounded out. In a lot of ways, I was much like George myself!

Chapter Three:

how did those monkeys get there anyway?

The first book I read completely on my own was called Caps for Sale, which I read in Kindergarten. It was about a peddler who (big surprise) sells caps. Hilarity ensues when all of the caps are stolen by monkeys, much to the chagrin of the peddler. A true classic from an author by the name of Esphyr Slobodkina. Being the first book I read by myself, it left an indelible mark on me. For the next year or so it was all Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman, and Bill Peet!

Chapter Four:

look! up in the sky!

The image to the right is the holy grail of my life-long love affair with one of the greatest forms of literature conceived by man; comic books! This issue of Ghost Rider #67 was the very first comic book I ever read. I literally read it until the pages fell out and the cover came off! Since the age of 8 when I received this book up to today, I’m still reading and collecting comics. Often times I could relate to the characters (Peter Parker especially), but it was also the images, action, and suspense that kept me coming back time and time again!

Chapter Five:

ignotus libri (a.k.a. obscure books)

Of course I couldn’t read comics all the time, so when I wasn’t catching up with Wolverine, I liked to find and read books off the beaten path. This list is comprised of books that fit into that category, and I’ve yet to find anyone who recognizes any of them!

-Some of the Adventures of Rhode Island Red (Steve Maines)-The Magician’s Apprentice (Tom McGowen)-The Magic Coin (Ruth Chew)-Pitch and Hasty Check it Out (Eric Deleon)-Too Much Magic (Betsy and Samuel Stern)-Dr. Dredd’s Wagon of Wonders (Bill Brittain)

As a kid, I loved that no one else but me had read or even knew about these books. It sounds strange, but it made the books seem like they were mine; like they had been written just for me.

Chapter Six:

the last stepping stoneTowards the end of my elementary career, I found myself holding a copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It had been my grandfather’s, and I distinctly remember the cover, shown here. Despite not quite grasping Orwell’s underlying message at the time, I was able to read the story quite well. This book quickly became one of my most precious possessions, and I must have read it a half dozen times at least before middle school. Much like all of the books that I had read up to that point in my life, comic books or otherwise, it deeply impacted me and made me the reader that I am today.