dual personalities

in 2nd grade on my outside reading sheets by listing books I hadn’t read and forging my mother’s initials. I distinctly remember thinking my forgery perfect, though I’m sure my teachers thought otherwise. I didn’t like reading. In fact, I hated it. That is, until I discovered this book by Agnes Sligh Turnbull:

It’s about a smart, eye-glass-wearing rabbit named George, who visits a nice family and improves the behavior and school performance of the two children, a boy and girl aged 6 and 8 respectively. The big sister stopped pulling her little brother’s hair and bossing him around and the little boy stopped fussing and insisting that he could do as he liked without regard for anyone else or his personal safety. I was enthralled and fervently wished a plucky rabbit would turn up and make my life perfect.

While that didn’t happen, I did learn that if reality didn’t involve fantastic talking rabbits, books might. The possibilities were limitless and I was hooked. So my heartfelt thanks to Agnes Sligh Turnbull for igniting a lifelong love of reading in this dual personality.

According to Wikipedia, Turnbull (1888-1982) was the daughter of Scottish immigrants, who lived most of her life in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and wrote best-selling novels and some juvenile fiction about decent (often Episcopalian) people struggling to make the right decisions and improve their lives. That was before being good became boring. Thanks to the internet, I was able to reunite with George and now I have my own copy of the book that inspired me (it’s pretty average, truth be told).

What sparked your love of books?