Late May, with Memorial Day quickly approaching, announces summer is about to arrive. A perfect summer activity awaits—the joy of reading a book just for pleasure, with no assignment attached, while eating an ice cream cone.

Louise Erdich was recently asked what book made her who she is today? Her response speaks volumes—It’s wasn’t a book, but it was stories. My family made life into stories. The stories we hear and the stories we tell make us who we are. Children are made readers on the laps of people who show their love by reading aloud, adding stories to a child’s memory bank from which they can draw on for a lifetime.

Children who are nurtured into becoming readers have a lifelong gift. They can go anywhere they please; they can meet extraordinary people, showing us who we are at a moment in time and who we might BEcome. No Matter the age, there is no statue of limitations on Becoming.

As children grow into adolescence, all too often they put their efforts into fitting in, leaving little energy left for finding out who they are. A child you loves stories and knows what it is to be nurtured by stories has a better shot of traveling on the road of BEcoming, not just fitting in and going along. They become the narrator of their own story.

This young girl is well on her way to dreaming, writing her story. Deep in my heart is my hope that one day she will share her story with me but if not, it will be enough to know stories nurtured her BeComing.