Were books a big part of your life growing up? I wish they had been for me. My mother had a great eye for style and color, but we did not have bookshelves growing up and she would have been surprised to see how many books and shelves are in my house.
As an eight-year-old, I went to the school library and chose a picture book titled "Big cats" about lions and tigers. The librarian was so surprised she actually took me aside to say I was too old for the book, which embarrassed me extremely. At the time, I really didn't understand how much books could do for me--let alone want to write them myself.
At home, my parents were reading books condensed by Reader's Digest, magazines and the papers. I later discovered my father loved classic books (including A Tale of Two Cities and Crime and Punishment). Later in his life, he spoke passionately to me about reading, but when I was a child, he worked six days a week from morning to night and was barely able to read for fifteen minutes before going to sleep--if at all.
My mother did not seem to have much interest in reading, and we never discussed why. Luckily for me, I was able to order Scholastic Books at school, which started me on a lifelong path to reading. When I was nine, I found The Diary of Anne Frank at a school book fair--which I can honestly say changed my life and made me want to write in a diary, too.
At age twelve, I was fortunate enough to get a teacher who really liked my writing and who encouraged me to write more; and my eighth grade teacher continued to encourage me. By the time I got to high school, though I wanted to be an actor, I was also writing essays and occasional poems that friends and even family seemed to like. That made me want to read more, to see how authors used words to describe the deepest parts of themselves.
In college, I read about families that were heavily engaged in politics and literature and wished my family had been that way too. Many years and many books later, I've come to realize that even if you don't have a lot of books around you growing up, you can and will catch up later, if you start reading what interests you.
I say this because I don't think reading is about how you rank up against someone else; it's about following a thread that interests you and learning how to communicate those interests in ways that are unique to you and compelling to your readers.
Of course, it helps if you have book shelves.
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I also found some articles on getting your kids reading:
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