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The Life and Times of Jennifer Elizabeth Hardin
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Age 1
I have been told that my mother started reading to me from the time I was born. As a baby, she read me Bible stories out of the Beginner's Bible, as religious beliefs and traditions were an important part of my household. -
Age 3
I can recall that at age three, I was being read to constantly. My mother taught me how to follow along with my finger, and it was the first time I started to connect written words to verbal language. She read to me every night without fail from my favorite bedtimes story book. -
Age 5
At age five, I was able to read books by myself. I was in Kindergarten at the time, and I remember the teacher having me read to the rest of the class so that I would not get bored during reading time. This was how she scaffolded instruction to me, as I was a very advanced reader. My favorite book at the time was "A Fish out of Water". -
Age 7
At age seven, I was in my own reading group at school, because I was reading at too high of a level for any of the reading books that were offered for my grade level. I won $50 in a school contest for reading 239 books in a month. Although I could read at an 8th grade level, my favorite books were the junior version of the Babysitter's Club. -
Age 9
At this age, my favorite books were mystery books. I loved to read "Nancy Drew" and "Cam Jansen". I also remember being a very frustrated reader at school, because my school participated in the accelerated Reader program. Although I could read very well, I did not enjoy the program because they based my book choices off of my reading level, which only allowed me to read books that were above my level of enjoyment, even though I could read and comprehend them. -
Age 11
At this age, I enjoyed reading fiction books. My favorite at the time was "Mr. Popper's Penguins". Needless to say, I was excited a few years ago when the movie was created. -
Age 13
I hated to read! This was largely due to the books that I was forced to read by a particularly terrible teacher. The books made no sense to me, and I felt stupid because for the first time in my life, I was reading something that I did not comprehend. The book that to this day I still hate with a passion: "Ivanhoe" -
Age 15
Although classics have never been my favorite genre of literature, I had a particularly good teacher who helped me to find one or two I could tolerate. I was stuck for a while, mesmerized by "Great Expectations". You can't really go wrong with Charles DIckens. -
Age 17
At age 17, I was living in Bucharest, Romania. I was very focused on learning the language, so most of my reading choices were chapter books that I was already familiar with, but I purchased them in Romanian. An example of a book that I read in Romanian was "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl. -
Age 19
College is where I started to develop a love for realistic fiction books. Most of the books that I read were related to topics that are generally taboo, such as suicide, drug abuse, eating disorders, etc. I was fascinated with how these books allowed me a glimpse into the supposed lives of others. -
Age 26
Not much has changed in recent years. I still enjoy reading realistic fiction from the Young Adult section in the bookstores. My current favorite book is "WIntergirls".
