Armchair BEA: Giveaways and Literature!

Giveaway

     When I'm upset I use retail therapy to make me feel better. And of course that shopping list always involves books.  So, I'm assuming the rest of you are like me. And like me, you are upset that you can't make it to BEA :( So I'm holding a giveaway just for you! Your prize is shopping for one book on Amazon for $10 or less and I will purchase it and ship it to you! (You must be 13 years or older to participate, you cannot be attending BEA, you must be participating in Armchair BEA, and sorry folks, but this is USA participants only!) 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

General Literary Fiction


     So, this topic said to be creative, so I'm going to tell you all a little story....Sit back and grab some popcorn! The title is: Books that Have Changed my Life

     When I was a little girl, my mom used to read to me all the time. My favorite two books were 
Goodnight Moon and Green Eggs and Ham.
     Pretty soon I began to follow along and read by myself. When my mom realized that I could read by myself I was 4 years old. To this day we have no idea how I learned to read. We just know that I followed along and next thing we knew I was a reading machine and a The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners fanatic! 
     This may seem like a pretty cool feat, but it got me in trouble. In school I would read
Dick And Jane Reading Collection (Collection: We Look, Something Funny, Jump And Run, Guess Who, Go Away, Spot, Go, Go, Go, Away We Go, Who Can Help, We See, We Work, We Play, Fun With Dick & Jane, Volumes 1  12)
my readers at home and then tell my classmates the ending when we were supposed to be discussing it.
     In fifth grade I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1). I fell in LOVE with the series. I remember following it all the way up until the last one came out years later when I was a high school grad. I loved them so much, for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) I was the first person in Galveston, Tx to have it (because I had went to a midnight release party) and they took my picture and I was in the paper and everything. In between waiting on the Harry Potter novels to come out, I found out I was addicted to Kristy's Great Idea (The Baby-Sitters Club, #1). I had the entire collection. 
     As I grew older, I read anything I could get my hands on. I started to read books where I related to the characters by skin color. How Stella Got Her Groove Back That in turn sparked my love for adult novels. The problem was, I was merely a teen and my mom was trying to monitor everything I read. So then I turned to everything that I had to read for class, with my favorite being To Kill a Mockingbird. This is a small miracle, because I naturally, I hate anything that I'm forced to read. 
     Finally, when I got to college I was still reading adult novels but by then, the Twilight (Twilight, #1) craze had hit because the movie was coming out. I'm someone that REFUSES to watch the movie before reading the book, so I finally gave in and read it... From then on I was addicted to paranormal romance and even more so YA books. 

As you can see, books changed me even as a small child and I want to make sure they all get their credit. 
What about you? What books have changed your life?