I don’t know about you, but as a kid I loved to read.

Every year during summer break, I would spend weeks reading book after book just so that I could complete our school’s assigned reading list and get a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. Looking back, I’d say that exchange was hardly fair, but 11-year-old me was much easier to please.

I also remember being one of those students who looked forward to the Scholastic Book Fair. For one glorious week, this “bookstore on wheels” would set up shop at our school library and we’d get to leave class to browse their elite selection of paperbacks and hardcovers. There was so much excitement in the simplicity of walking in with a $10 bill in hand and leaving with a brand-new novel for late-night reading.

As I got older, however, my priorities changed and I found myself periodically buying books that would end up in a giant stack on my nightstand, some never even cracked open. Can you relate? It took a pandemic for me to rekindle my love for reading, and that was only after I had already binge-watched a dozen TV shows and baked enough banana bread to hand out to the whole neighborhood. As it turns out, a good book can be a great distraction in the midst of uncertainty and isolation, and that was exactly what I needed.

There’s nothing like stepping out of your own world for a moment and using your imagination to dive deep into the pages of new stories and characters. But where to begin if it’s been ages since you enjoyed a good book?

The right book can reignite your passion for reading. Your celebrity of choice likely already has their own suggested reading list (Reese Witherspoon, anyone?), but we at Hatch wanted to give some “tried and true” recommendations as well!

Below are a few titles I think you might enjoy as you inch your way towards becoming a bookworm once again.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

The narrator of the book is Death (stay with me here) and the heroine is a little girl named Liesel who, you guessed it, steals books. Set in Nazi-occupied Germany, this read is equally full of dark humor and unrequited hope. After I was done with this one, I felt cheated by my middle school teachers for never assigning this book in class.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

What would you do in a place where you can’t see different colors? What about a place where no one has no compassion, empathy, or any sort of emotion at all? Follow the story of Jonás, as he uncovers a deep gift within him that will change the course of his seemingly utopian society forever. You will have a hard time putting this one down.

Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir, by Frank McCourt

There’s literally nothing funny about being born during the Great Depression to a poor, Irish Catholic family living in Brooklyn. Yet somehow, as Frank McCount pens his childhood story, he makes you want to laugh to keep from crying and cry to keep from laughing. Absolutely one of my favorite memoirs of all time.