Confessions of Book Stealing

I’ve always been a big reader.  When I was a kid, my favorite genre of books to read was fantasy.  But at about age 9, one particular type of book was especially irresistible to me: the choose-your-own-adventure. These were the stories where after reading about the hero’s latest predicament, you had a choice between two different page numbers to turn to, based on how you wanted the story to unfold.  Turn to page 36 if you want to escape down into the troll’s cave, or to page 83 if you want to feign death.  The protagonist’s fate was in your hands.

As a result of this compulsion for life-threatening decision-making, these books were the entire gamut of my 5th-grade reading diet.  All the books came from my elementary school’s public library, but loaning the books wasn’t enough, of course.  I had to own them.  They had to be mine.

So, I stole them.  Once a week or so, our class would venture to the library, to check out books.  I would scour the shelves for the familiar-looking covers, then scurry to a table to begin the adventure.  When it was time to leave the library, I would simply hold the book along with my other schoolbooks, as if I had checked it out like all the other students.  “Hide in plain sight,” as they say!

This confession was prompted by an excellent post by Ben Myers, cataloging the history of book stealing, from basically the dawn of time.  There are some excellent quotes peppered throughout, and it is an enjoyable read!  Be sure and drop by for a look [LINK].

(The image here, for anyone that doesn’t know, is a parady image of the classic covers of the books.  The title is poking fun at the fact that your decisions in the books frequently resulted in unexpected death!)