We're four days into the new year and, if lines of customers at my store were any indication, there are many people out there who are reading a new book right now.  Well, maybe not right this instant...actually, yes they are.  Most Americans would probably do almost anything to avoid the media's excessive coverage of the Iowa caucuses, maybe even read a book.  Most adults have already filed themselves into a specific category of reader.  Which kind of reader are you?  Would you only read if someone held a gun to your head?  Maybe only if its about the Kardashians?  Would you read a book by the Kardashians?  Or maybe just about them?  Is your taste a bit higher than Snooki's literary talents?  Or is funny fluffy reads all you're willing to entertain?  Will you be among the booknerds like me who have packed away over fifty books on your finished list?  Whichever category you fall into as an adult, a gift from another is probably unlikely to greatly change your path as a reader. 
But I feel that, with every book that is presented to a child, a new kind of reader could be born.  When asked for recommendations for children by customers in the store this holiday season, I suggested books that I thought a child might like to read.  Because creating a reader is the outcome I want these gifts to accomplish.

   Here I am, probably aged five, receiving my first library card from the local librarian.  To get to this spot, dressed up (check out those shoes!), and accompanied in the background by my mother and sister, I was already a reader.  I might not have been able to read much by myself at that age, but that girl was already a reader.  This photo has lingered in my parent's photo albums for years but even the fact that it made it into the albums shows how the written word is revered in my family.  Yes, as a teenager I probably would have hid this photo from the light of day, but now I want to plaster it on a billboard.  There is no greater gift to humanity than a new reader.  A five year old me in a little plaid dress didn't know the knowledge that this new library card could bring me.  But I can't fathom my life without that curiosity within me.  And I can hope that some book I recommended this holiday season has lit the same curiosity in the child who unwrapped it.

    And maybe one of those kids will grow up to search out a community with a quality library, a town with residents who value curiosity and knowledge...