Childhood Memory

It's hard to pick out just one childhood memory for a couple of reasons. For one thing, most of them come in little pieces; it's hard to remember all the details. A lot of the events tend to merge into one. Another reason is that there is so much to choose from, and trying to sort out what is most important to you.

Being an English nerd, a lot of my favorite childhood memories involve me reading books or playing pretend and making up my own stories. There is one of those memories that will always stand out to me though.

In the summer before I started third grade, I accomplished something that made me very proud. It was a summer evening, the kind that made you nostalgic for your younger days when looking back. I had spent a lot of time reading that day, but I always went out at dusk, which was my favorite part of the day. However, that day I was outside in order to get my mom to come back in so I could tell her something.

I remember standing in the kitchen while the sun slowly made its way below the horizon, its last few rays peeking through the window and highlighting the room. I held up a very heavy book and proudly proclaimed that I had finished reading it. It was the fourth Harry Potter book, with a whopping 400-500 pages in it. At eight years old, that was the biggest book I had ever read on my own. Not only was I proud that I had finished it, but I had finally made it through all the books that currently existed in the series.

This memory stands out for a couple of reasons. In my class at school, I was known as the best reader in the class, so this was something to add to my repetoire. For another, I had started the series only a few months earlier and it had captured my attention very strongly in that time period, so I was glad to be caught up.

It also stands out, especially now, since I know how the series impacted my life and my childhood. I spent days longing for my letter to Hogwarts and dreaming of casting spells and sending letter by owl. It wasn't the first time that I fell in love with a book series, but it was the one that would hold onto me for a very long time to come. So even now, when I think about summer days in the past, that one will always be one of the first to jump into my mind.