ABSTRACT
Even though I grew up in a working-class home as one of seven children in a patriarchal household where our father worked and our mother stayed home, my parents were readers. They believed in the power of books. And, naturally, they valued education as a means of social mobility. From early girlhood on I was encouraged to read. Even though Rosa Bell, my mother, had never graduated from high school, she bragged about her passion for reading and sought eagerly to share that passion with me. Against my father's wishes, she was willing to spend money on books, to let me know the pride of book ownership and the joy of possessing the gift that keeps on giving—the book that one can read over and over and over. I did not read silently to myself. I carted my books around the neighborhood to read to the elderly and shut-in, to share with them my treasures.
