See Dick and Jane #mfrwauthor

It's Friday, time for the next post in the 2018 challenge. As soon as I saw the list of topics, I knew that unlike the earlier challenge, I was not going to do all those this year. And this topic was one I immediately dismissed.

If I picked a religious book as one that influenced my life, I risked being labeled a fanatic--or a heretic, depending on the book and the reader's leanings.

I could chose a book on craft, then I'd have to duck the rotten produce thrown my way when the book was not his or her favorite. So I won't go with the Golden Rule or the Rule of Three. 

I am an author and used to make my living with words. Before that I was a reader. This post won't be about a book of literature or poetry, nor one of heroism at which I cry and salute the fallen hero at the end. It was probably inevitable that I went into a technical field. It used to be joked that I learned my letters and numbers by updating manuals. At the time I was not even in school, but I knew three words Add / Change / Delete.

So I've chosen as a book that influenced that part of my life.


The Dick and Jane books were written by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp and published by Scott Foresman. They were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States. So how did Fun with Dick and Jane influence my life? It was a reader, and like the predecessors in the classification, was a book by which I learned to read. And that skill translated to the ability to write.

What book influenced your life? Leave a comment below and visit the other posts in the challenge. ~till next time, Helen