Most Vermont public schools started on Wednesday and there has been a steady stream of kids in the store getting what they think will be the last few pleasure reading books they can. Kids moving up grades into the unknown world, new teachers, and homework loads make them understandably anxious about their reading time. I love this yearly phenomenon. It speaks to the power of reading in a profound way. Kids who spent the summer reading whatever they wanted are already feeling bereft at the potential loss of this special time. 
I have many happy memories of summers spent reading adult horror novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub, wholly inappropriate books by Jacqueline Susann, as well angsty young adult novels. I would have stacks of books and read late into the night and even into the early morning. There was a freedom at seeing the summer stretch out before me with all the time in the world to read. My mother and I would spend all summer reading and talking about our books, often trading books back and forth. There was something really lovely about talking books with my mom. We’d talk about the plots of scary books and what we were now afraid of. I’ll never forget when Cujo came out and we took turns reading it, each of us cowering at certain parts, and for a long time, neither one of us could look at a Saint Bernard without pangs of fear. I, too, was not a fan of returning to school each fall to be told by my teachers what I could read and what books would be considered “acceptable” for book reports and count towards my half hour a night of pleasure reading. The prescription surrounding reading during the school year always left me a little angry. Vermont kids are no different.
All of this end-of-summer, must-get-those-books-in philosophy is as endearing as it heartbreaking to me. It speaks to the larger issue of what kids are forced to read in school and how often that doesn’t line up with what they’d actually want to be reading (this is a larger post for another day). But that these young readers are so wary of losing this special time for reading tells me that they are blossoming into great readers. I fully expect that once they get used to their homework load, they’ll be streaming in again to get their “fun” books.
I’m curious, ShelfTalker readers, what kinds of books were you sad to leave behind when school started again?