You see, at seven years old I could not read. gasp It was awful. I could not make the words make any sense whatsoever. I would try to read, but would always end up in tears with the words all funny and jumbled.

Then, when I was seven years old, I gave my life to Christ, and He changed everything.

I still remember that day, sitting in the back of the church. Once the pastor asked if anyone wanted to be saved and believe in Jesus, my hand shot up. It always did. But this day was different. I had this thought pop up into my mind that I wanted to read the Bible and was sad that I could not. Then I got hot all over and I just started crying. I didn’t know what was wrong with me? Why was I crying like this? I ran out of the sanctuary to find my mom. Thankfully, she had the wisdom to pull me aside and sit me down. I told her what happened, and that I didn’t know what was wrong with me. She assured me that nothing was wrong, but actually something good was happening. She said that Jesus was in my heart now and that must be what I was feeling. Immediately I felt better and was at peace.

Remember, I couldn’t read before this.

The next morning I woke up, flipped through my little kid Bible with a pink Veggie Tales book cover and started reading Leviticus. I was READING! Why Leviticus was the first book I read, I have no idea, but I could read and it was the Bible, so that was all that really mattered to me.

I could read! And I fell in love with reading and then later writing stories!

The short answer is that I am a Christian and I have values I want to preserve and honor.

While I am an adult now and have probably grown out of my parents’ book rules, I still want to be careful about what books I read and the thoughts I put into my mind. The kinds of things I avoid reading may not be what you avoid. I think it is important to hold to your values.

Sometimes the only way you can do this is by looking up the content and not being surprised.

Also, if you are a parent or a grandparent and you want to give your children or grandchildren books without accidentally giving them something scandalous…looking up stories is a must. My siblings know they can come to me and have me look up any story they are interested in and tell them if it is safe or not.

I still look up every book I read before reading it to check the content unless they are trusted Christian authors, or the writer is dead.

For some reason, many dead authors (not all) had moral backbones different from our modern sensibilities. Not all. This isn’t a rule. I just know if I’m going to read a classic, nine out of ten times it is safe. For example, I don’t feel the need to look up the content for novels written by C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J. R. R. Tolkien, L.M. Montgomery or Beatrix Potter.