Reading and being familiar with the classics has always been the norm for me and looking back in my childhood, I found the reason, and with it a startling recognition of something that was so important to my world of reading. The Bookmobile!
I grew up on a farm in Barnardsville, NC which was very rural in the days before roads were improved for quicker routes to Weaverville, Asheville, and Mars Hill. It was and still is a small town with a Post Office, school, churches and a few gas stores; there isn't any grocery stores or fast food chains. It is located in the north east section of Buncombe County in such a way that you would never drop by Barnardsville while going somewhere else. The closest public library was in Weaverville, which was at least thirty minutes away from my home, and with both parents working, going there was not a possibility. During the school year the school library was part of the classes, but in the summer months, when you had more reading time, there wasn't any available library for me. Fortunately, there was a bookmobile that stopped at my neighbor's house (she was a reader and loved Zane Gray) and became my connection to books. I can only guess as to the schedule of the bookmobile, but it wasn't weekly and you were limited to how many books you could check out. Not many things could be as bad as using up the limit and getting a book that wasn't a good read. So I quickly learned the symbol that indicated a classical book .... you could always depend on that symbol to be a good read! Thus began my reading relationship with the Classics. See the lists of titles by ages at this site: http://www.wannalearn.com/Classic_Literature/
I decided to check Wikipedia to see what happened to the Bookmobile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmobile and I am excited to find the bookmobile is still going strong in many areas. Kentucky leads the states in participation with ninety-eight bookmobiles in operation. April 16th is National Bookmobile Day.
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