Laura Bush, Author, Teacher, Librarian, First Lady

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Laura Bush, the nation's most famous former librarian and literacy advocate, reads every day to escape and relax.

"Reading is very comforting to me," she says. She reads mostly fiction. "I read biographies some. I don't read a lot of history like George does." Some favorites:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

(literature and fiction)

"I usually have several books going, although my favorite is to have a great book going that I can't put down, and one of the recent ones of that type was The Kite Runner. Have you read it? It's really great." The novel, by Khaled Hosseini, is a story of two childhood friends in Afghanistan."

Essays of E.B. White by E. B. White

(literature and fiction, classics)

"On her bedside table at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, is Essays of E.B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web."

The Cat's Pajamas by Ray Bradbury

(literature and fiction)

"The Cat's Pajamas, a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury that was a gift from the author, is at the White House. "You can read one quick story before you go to bed."

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

(children books (Ages 9-12), children books, teens)

"Caddie Woodlawn was a book that I loved when I was in the fifth grade," she says. The book, by Carol Ryrie Brink, is about an 11-year-old tomboy in 1864 Wisconsin."

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

(literature and fiction, classics, mystery and thrillers, romance)

"A literature class years ago in Dallas made her appreciate The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. "That really meant a lot," she says. "One of the really great things about a book club or about going to a literature class is reading books that are hard. ... You get a lot more out of them when you read them and discuss them." She's not in a book club, but she and her friends sometimes read the same novels and discuss them."

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

(children books (Ages 9-12), children books, literature and fiction, classics)

"A childhood favorite was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, which her mother, Jenna Welch, read to her before she learned to read. "That was a book that I've loved throughout my life that I've read again and again."

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

(children books (Ages 9-12), children books, children books series)

"She also loves Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, which include Little House on the Prairie. "The little girl's name was Laura and she had brown hair, and I really identified with her," Bush says. "

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The books that inspired me to champion literacy.

Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss

(children books (Ages 4-8), children books)

"Selecting books with the most personal meaning is very difficult for a librarian--it's like asking which are your favorite children. Among children's books, "Hop on Pop" has a lot of personal meaning for me. It features Dr. Seuss's typically wonderful illustrations and rhymes ("SEE BEE THREE Now we see three"), of course, but the main thing for me is the family memory--the loving memory--that the book evokes of George lying on the floor and reading it to our daughters, Barbara and Jenna. They were little bitty things, and they took "Hop on Pop" literally, and jumped on him--we have the pictures to prove it."

Little House (The Complete Nine-Book Set) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

(children books (Ages 9-12), children books, children books series)

"I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and I identified with Laura because of her name and her brown hair. But there were other reasons that they were important to me: I read them with my mother, and they gave me a whole sense of our country--the sense of what life was like as a pioneering family traveled across 19th-century America. You followed along as Laura grew up, and then you moved on to the young-adult books of the series, like "These Happy Golden Years," when Laura becomes a teacher and marries her suitor, Almanzo. These books--about a loving and warm family life, about parents who expected the best for each and every one of their children--represent what I view as genuine American values."

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(classics, literature and fiction, mystery and thrillers, religion and spirituality, romance)

"As I grew up I found "The Brothers Karamazov" to be one of the deepest, most interesting of books I read--one that was the most fun to re-read. Maybe I shouldn't say "fun," given that it is about spiritual struggle, but to read it over and over again at various times in my life was always rewarding. That includes the time I read the book while sitting by a swimming pool in Houston, when I worked as a teacher in the early 1970s. Though the book was Russian, there was always a sort of Texas heat about this memory. Later, when George and I lived in Dallas, I took literature courses at the Dallas Institute, and of course we read "The Brothers Karamazov." But it is such an endless well of ideas on human character that this book is always one I'd be ready to pick up and read again."

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

(children books (Ages 9-12), children books, literature and fiction, classics)

"Little Women," Louisa May Alcott's book about a Civil War family, is one I remember vividly, first from reading with my mother when I was little. She read it to me before I could read. The impression it made just shows how important it is to have parents who read and who read to you. That's how every one of us librarians ended up where we did: making our careers out of reading because we loved it so much. First I was a teacher and then, since what I liked best about teaching was reading and sharing literature with children, I became a librarian. Now it is the whole focus of my life, really. And it all started with my mother's love of reading books like "Little Women" to me. I went on to read it on my own, then with friends and my own children."

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

(business books, children books, IT books, food and cooking, health, history, literature and fiction, mystery and thrillers, nonfiction, parenting, religion and spirituality, romance, science, teens)

"Huckleberry Finn" is another of those books that I value greatly, that I read a number of times. It is a classic American work--with its themes of freedom and independence and Huck's coming of age as he flees on a raft down the Mississippi to avoid "sivilizing" back home--and one that is important to our country. The pleasure to be had from reading a book like "Huckleberry Finn" is one reason why, I believe, there is a renewed interest in reading in this country. There are book clubs all over. I see that my girls and their friends all read, and they love to trade books and talk about books they like. Reading has been such an important part, such an incredible center of my life, that I would like for everyone, especially American students, to know how rewarding it can be."