Introducing....me =)

My name is Gabrielle Paravati.  I am 20 years old and have always loved to read.  I would always have a book with me when I went somewhere.  The thing that I loved about books is that I could live another life while reading them.  My life was pretty dull growing up so I would read books and live in imaginary worlds instead because books have a lot more excitement.  At first, I began to read for school, but because my elementary school had a wonderful librarian, I read on my own pretty fast.  I was reading really well by 1st grade and got into chapter books maybe around 2nd or 3rd grade.  My libraran would read parts of stories to us and then I would want to read that book or one by the same author.  When I was in middle school I loved to read Harry Potter books.  I can still remember bringing one of those books everyday to school just in case there was time for free reading.  I also loved to read Judy Bloom books like Blubber.  I think I was always drawn to books with a love story mostly.  I love when I can live the life of someone in love when I am reading.  When I am a bad mood and I read a book like that, my mood is lifted pretty fast because I feel like I am in love too. =)  When I was in middle school and highschool, I remember reading books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Boy's Life, Animal Farm, The Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars, The Illiad, and The Odyssey.  I liked most of these books because my teachers did a lot of activities with them.  I would consider myself a motivated reader because I don't read just for school, I like to read on my own time as well.  When I become a teacher, I hope to instill the same love of reading that I have onto my students.  I hope to do great activities with books so that the students enjoyed reading for school as much as I did.  I think that reading is one of the most important things that students can do.  It helps them develop an imagination and also learn life lessons because most books have those in them as well.  Also it helps develop students vocabulary.  Reading is basically awesome and I think everyone should be doing it in their free time. =)