Reading & Healing with my Inner Child
The sweet satisfaction of crossing another book off my reading list and rewarding my efforts with the promise of a tiny pizza.
In an effort to reduce my overall screen time and the number of times I pick up my phone during the day, I’ve started re-reading the books I enjoyed during my childhood. As a child, I was an avid reader and student in the gifted program.1 I read a lot of books. The Pizza Hut Book It program incentive was a big deal for tiny Kayla. You’re telling me, an eight year old, that if I read a certain number of books, I can get a free personal pizza? Bet.
My 29 year old self, however, is not quite the reader my younger self was, as I have just recently returning to a solid reading routine. I read 10 books last year, and this year’s goal is to at least double that number. I’m seven books in. We’ll get there.
Another 2024 goal of mine is to write more. I want to better articulate my thoughts and share my perspectives with my community through Substack. To improve the overall experience of these little love notes to you dear reader, I must immerse myself in a wider range of texts.
I’m also reading more to increase my attention span, and hold something other than my phone in my hands. It’s clear education is not important to the leaders of our society, and it’s our responsibility to encourage independent reading and literacy to new generations glued to their iPads. Regulate your nervous system. Encourage your children, your friends to put the phone down and pick up a book, I beg.
I recently finished The Clique by Lisi Harrison, and cringed at the memory of my middle school self being obsessed with the series2. At one point I started recording my own diary entries in the same format as Massie, a simple in and out column recapping high level events of the day.
I’m simultaneously reading a range of more mature books to aid in my own personal development and creative growth as I move into my third decade of existence.
I *finally* finished The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and have recently started Beloved by Toni Morrison and Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
Other childhood favorites on my TBR list include the rest of the books in The Clique series,3 selections from the Nancy Drew series, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and other selections by Mildred D. Taylor.
I’ll continue this rotation for between my childhood reads and adult reads for the rest of the year, and if I achieve my goal, I’ll make myself a tiny personal veggie pizza.
Tiny Kayla would be so proud.
A special gift, from me to you:
My Free Notion Reading Log Template.
Special neurodivergent classes.
My 8th grade yearbook was designed after the cover. I wish I had a picture of it, but I know it’s tucked away in a memory box at my parents’ house.
At first I said I wasn’t going to read them, but the rest of the series goes beyond what was discussed in the movie, and that was all I saw in my read while reading the book.