History - My Lifelong Love Katie Pack

I’ve never been able to buy my Halloween costumes from a store. While my friends dressed up as ballerinas and princesses, I was Molly Pitcher and Clara Barton - not exactly costumes you can find at PartyCity. Instead, my mom made my costumes, looking up patterns for “colonial girl dresses” and learning how to sew aprons and mob caps. No one ever knew who I was dressed up as, but I loved reading biographies and searching for someone to dress up as for next Halloween.

Other kids in elementary school played baseball or did gymnastics, but I was a triathlete. From the ages of 6-9, I was being bribed to compete in IronKids and LifeTime races with any 3 “Who Was” books of my choosing. Over the years, I was able to amass quite a collection of books of all genres, but my favorites were always anything relating to history. In third grade I loved the American Girl and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series, in middle school my favorite book was Helen Keller’s “The Story of My Life,” and once I was in high school I developed a taste for longer books, like “3 Roads to the Alamo” and “Stealing the General.” While I loved books of all kinds - who could forget my years long obsession with Percy Jackson - I could never kick my history...