Why I Read: Marti Fiske, Director of the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library

By Marti Fiske

I wanted to be a reader from a very, very young age. (See photo above.) But once I started school I had problems learning how. The teachers knew that I didn’t have any learning disorder. I would do well in small group work, but not so well in larger groups.  It wasn’t until the school nurse visited our classroom mid-way through first grade for general eye exams that they figured out the problem. I couldn’t see the chalkboards and flash cards in the distance. After my seat was moved to the front of the room and I got glasses my reading skills took off.

I grew up in the small farming community of Fairfield, Vermont (population 1,493 in 1980).  I don’t remember having a library in my school until I was in junior high, and that was tiny. There was no public library in town then. The nearest library was 20 minutes away in St. Albans. My family didn’t use that library because for many years we only had one car and my dad took it to work. My family had to make every dollar stretch. Buying a new book was always a special occasion. Somehow though, there was always reading material around.

My father read the newspaper daily and had trade magazines related to his work. He had a long row of books, mostly history and a few classics, in shelves tucked under the short knee-wall in his den. My mom had a small collection of paperback novels, mostly science fiction, over her side of the bed in a built-in headboard shelf. The school offered quarterly newsletters from which I could order a few inexpensive paperbacks. Every few months we might make a trip to the bookstore in St. Albans. I saved up money from birthdays, my paper route and babysitting. Eventually I would have a small collection of Trixie Belden mystery books. I loved those books so much that I decided to save them for the next generation in my family. My whole collection fit into a brown shopping bag. I eventually passed the collection along to my nieces, but by then Harry Potter and fantasy was all the rage. I’m not sure that they were ever read.

The small village I lived in was mostly populated with adults and children much younger or older than I. With the exception of my sister, who is one year younger, I only had a couple of playmates within easy walking distance. For most of those years we did not have a television.  When we did have one, we only had three fuzzy stations, sometime six if the weather was right, and one of those was in French. Television viewing was always regulated. Reading was the activity which I preferred to all others. On cold winters nights and on bright summer days I would be reading. On those summer days my father would come into the room I was reading in, announce that I needed to stop being a “houseplant” and get myself outdoors. I would just carry my book outside and read it under a tree.

I would read anything I could get my hands on. I would read the cereal boxes at breakfast, road signs and the newspaper. I read the “grown up” books my extended family had. I didn’t do so well with my dad’s copy of “The Three Musketeers” when I was eight. However, a bodice ripper romance set in the French Revolution and my mom’s science fiction were quickly devoured, even if I didn’t quite understand everything that happened in the stories. I fell in love with the darker version of the original “Mary Poppins” and the tragic “Little Women.” I read Jean Plaidy’s historical fiction about royal lives and anything that took place in WWII, Civil War or Colonial/Revolutionary era.

My diverse reading as a child was mostly for entertainment. It allowed me to travel outside of my little town. The process of entertaining me also brought me to self-discovery. For a time I thought I would become a space colonist on the Moon or Mars. Then I wanted to do anything that involved history, work in a museum, be an archaeologist, then a history teacher. (I earned my Bachelors in Social Studies and Junior/Senior High School Education.)

I moved from that small farming community nearly 35 years ago. I sometimes feel I’ve lived several lives within that time. I have worked a variety of jobs. I have visited several states and thirteen countries. I watched my nieces grow to young women. I have loved and lost and loved again. I still read historical themed novels for entertainment or to get a more emotional sense about a topic. Most of my reading now though is in nonfiction. I read about history, a variety of religions and sociology. Reading helps me to make my understanding of the world clearer.  I read to educate myself so that I can make informed decisions. I read for inspiration to figure out a problem. I read to understand how our cultures got this way and to consider what could happen if we continue as we are. Reading allows me to question myself, to remove ignorance, and to understand others near and far. I still read to expand my life. I can’t imagine a world without reading. I think human society would be so much poorer without it. I know my life would be.


We are always looking for new blog writers from the community. Please contact Allison Provost at aprovost@sterncenter.org if you'd like to share why YOU love to read!