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Rikki is born
The first words ever read to me were from that of a traditional Jewish prayer (Techinot) to be recited during and after the birth of a child. The prayer recited after the birth of a girl goes: Baruch ata Adonay Elohanu Melech Haolam, Shehechiyanu, v’Kiyamanu, v’ Higiyanu l’zman hazeh. It means: Blessed are You G-d, L-rd of the Universe, Who has kept me alive, and sustained me, and made me arrive at this day. -
Rikki fell in love with Margaret Wise Brown's children's book Goodnight Moon
Though unable to read Goodnight Moon on my own, it was the first book that I truly memorized all of the words to. I would recite it back to my parents as they were reading it to me. Goodnight Moon enabled me to not only fall in love with the characters and the bedroom in which the bunny lived, but it also assisted me in coming to terms with my irrational fears, such as the unknown. -
Rikki has Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone read aloud to her every night.
During the summer going into first grade, my cousins gave me head lice. As boys, they could have their hair shaved off, but being a girl with extremely thick hair, I had to nit pick my hair every night for three hours. My babysitter would pick my hair while my mom would sit in the front of the kitchen and read me the story. I always directly correlate the first Harry Potter book to head lice... -
Rikki tried to convince herself that she was a huge fan of the Harry Potter series
During my third summer at camp, the popular book series of the summer was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. All of my friends were shoveling through the text, so I had to convince myself that I loved the books as much as everybody else did to comprehend the relevancy of important conversations. Realistically, that whole land of witchcraft and wizardy wasn't necessarily my cup of tea. -
Rikki secretly loves reading Holocaust memoirs
As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, the legacy of World War II has always been present and relevant in my life. After studying World War II and getting to talk to my grandfather at a personnel level about his highly unique experience, I wanted to know the stories of all survivors. I became obsessed with reading memoirs from Holocaust survivors, but I kept that a secret becuase I felt that it was an odd obsession to possess. -
Rikki fails to have time to do any free reading
I entered high school at Francis W. Parker in September of 2009. As soon as I was exposed to the average workload that a high-schooler has to experience, I was overwhelmed. Sadly for me, my vast interests in different fields of literature were minimized because I lost time that I was able to read. My reaading was limited to almost exclusively in-class assignments and junk magazines such as tabloids. -
Rikki reads the best book she's ever read. Ever.
I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer during Christmas break of my sophomore year. The book, which is about a child coming to terms with his father's death in 9/11, was the only book that I've ever read in one sitting. The book intrigued me in an emotional way that I've never experienced in any other outlet or book. -
As an in class assignment, Rikki read As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
As I Lay Dying was by far the most challenging book I've ever read and analyzed. The language was very cryptic and challenging, but it was a great book to analyze and understand when all was said and done. There was a point where a quarter of the way into the book, I was convinced that the pregnant female character was one of the brothers in the family.... Overall, studying As I Lay Dying helped my analytical studying skills. -
RIkki realizes her interest in autobiographies and memoirs
Taking Mr. Mahany's Autobiography and Memoir class enabled me to realize my massive interest in reading memoirs. I enjoy this genre of stories because they are personable and realistic. They enable me as a reader to either engage with text that is similar to the life I live or vastly different. -
Rikki has a weird obsession witth tabloids
How I've developed an interest in the whereabouts of the celebrities is beyond me. I don't necessarily have a subscription to People magazine, but I make sure to purchase it (alongside other magazines such as Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan, and more) everytime that I go to an airport. I completely induldge into these magazines on vacation because they give me an escape from the relevancy of the society I'm living in. The length of my vacation directly correlates to how many tabloids I buy. -
Reading Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine helps Rikki try ot get into college
I was taken by surprie when during one of my college interviews, I was asked if there were any books I was currently reading that I enjoyed. I was reading Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine for my Civil Liberties class and realized that it was a book that was not only interesting, but it also represented my intellectual curiousity for relevent societal issues such as the Supreme Court. The book definitely helped me attempt to impress my interviewer.
