My Favorite School Memory

The year was 1995 and it was the best time of a seven-year-old book-worm's life: The Scholastic Book Fair. These things were never announced prior, rather they would come out of the fog of learning to write my name in cursive in my Lisa Frank trapper keeper as a total surprise. The bell had just rung and instead of going to recess to hang upside down on the twirling bars, I beelined it to the library. I can still remember how the tables were set up, how the afternoon light was catching in the trees that shrouded the windows, and how I was the first one there. The second I stepped inside my elementary school’s library, my eyes locked on it from afar: A purple diary with two kitties on the cover, complete with a lock on the side and a set of two flimsy keys that must have been made from tin foil. It had to be mine! I scoured for the price and stormed out of there with my floral leggings and sideways shirt clip. 

The moment I got home from school, I asked my mother, whom I was identically styled to; as she wore leggings, Keds and a shirt clip, for the $7.95 required to get my diary. This was incredibly urgent. She laughed when I told her what it was for, but thankfully, obliged. Then took part in my worrying that all of the kitty diaries would be sold out overnight. I was to go first thing tomorrow morning and get it.. 

The next morning, the ladies working the book fair watched me run inside, grab the journal (not a single one had sold) and shovel over my money. I will never forget how they started laughing amongst themselves, joking I knew exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t wait to make my first entry that day! So the second I got home, I got out my pretty pencils, and went to work. I was seven years old.

“May 3, 1995…
This is my new diary. Dan is so cute. I love cats, I love dogs. I have six cats. I love frogs. I like Taylor. I like Nick and I sit by him on the bus.”

As you can gather, I really, really liked animals. But what I discovered from these silly entries was how much I enjoyed putting words on paper. 

My best memories of school are always centered around the Scholastic Book Fairs. They only got better with time, and eventually I would receive catalogs beforehand that I could pre-order from. Oh, the JOY of ordering a glow-in-the-dark Goosebumps t-shirt that came with a matching keychain. Kids these days will never know how hard it was to wait six weeks for a delivery!

What I was reading in the mid-late 1990’s:

R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” series were still being produced. I had every single book!

Like many children, Lois Lowry was a favorite author of mine growing up.

Perhaps my all-time favorite childhood book, that I just re-read a few months ago to find I still enjoy it is “Running Out of Time” by Margaret Peterson Haddix. 

Keep reading,

Cassandra