Sharing the Stories I Love

When I was younger and about the age where my reading interests and the interests of my sisters' first started to align, the attitude I took on was not initially one of excitement and enthusiasm to share my favorite books.  I believe the most dramatic instance of this was when I discovered the Redwall books by Brian Jacques.  I absolutely loved Redwall and the adventures of Matthias and company, but when my younger sister wanted to read it I was decidedly not enthused.  These were my stories, and I wanted to treasure them all to myself - at least for a while.  It took my mother ordering me to stop being selfish and let my sister read the book.  I didn't own it, I had just checked it out from the library and she could read it too. Reluctantly, I handed it over to her to read.

She fell in love with Redwall too, and as we progressed through the series together I discovered just how much fun it was to have someone else, particularly someone else in your family, who enjoyed reading the same books as you.  My friends and I didn't always read the same things, and they were much harder to shove a book at and say "YOU MUST READ THIS NOW!", and quite frequently they were less - shall we say, fanatical? - in their reactions.  Also, siblings are a little more readily available for conversation (that mainly consisted of "OHMYGOSHTHATPART!!!") than friends, due to the fact that I live with my siblings and not with my friends.

Since that initial rocky start, I have shared a lot of the books that I love with my siblings.  I like to think that they would not be as nearly well read as they are if it weren't for me.  We've shared Nancy Drew, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, (my brother is the only one I've gotten to read the Silmarillion), Jane Austen, The Hunger Games, the Divergent trilogy, Anne of Green Gables, The Fairy Tale Novels Series... it's a very long list.  We don't always like the same things (I have on sister who refuses to read Tolkien  and not all of us enjoyed The Hunger Games), nor do all of us read everything that someone else is reading, but generally speaking we have the same tastes.

Last summer I picked up Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief from the library, and for the first time five out of the seven of us (the youngest two weren't quite at that reading level) all read through and entire series at the same time.  There was a little bickering as to who got to read the next book first, but it was a lot of fun all discovering a great series together and being able to talk about our favorite parts and characters.  This year the second to youngest picked up the series and has been making her way through as avidly as we did.

The inspiration for writing this post came today as Sister #3 (the middle child who doesn't like Tolkien) waited for me to load the first episode of Sherlock Season 3 for us to watch together.  She's become an avid Sherlock fan as of late and has been patiently waiting to watch the recent season on the internet, reading the stories by Sir Doyle while she does.

As the eldest child, introducing my siblings to the stories I love has become a role that I enjoy.  I may not have enjoyed it when I was younger, but now I wait eagerly as each one grows up to be old enough to read another favorite book or series.  And sometimes, they introduce new stories to me too and that is just as fun.