For This Girl, Books Spark Imagination

Just 13 years old, Honey Hashemian of Irvine said she has loved reading for “a really long time.”

Her parents are big readers and the family, which also includes Honey’s twin sister and younger brother, are frequent shoppers at their nearby bookstore, Barnes & Noble in Tustin Marketplace.

“She doesn’t like to get us a lot of things, but she always says that if there’s a book we want, to tell her and she’ll get it for us,” Honey said about her mom.

An eighth-grader at Sierra Vista Middle School, Honey enrolled in the summer reading program at the Irvine Heritage Park Regional Library for several years. Now she’s a volunteer there, signing up young readers and encouraging them to devour books.

As a little girl, Honey would fall asleep nearly every night as her mother read to her. As soon as she was able, she began reading herself to sleep. She also likes to hunker down with a novel in her beanbag chair. She reads, on average, a book a week.

“It just lets you go to a place you can imagine,” she said.

Mysteries are her favorite. “Right now I’m reading ‘The Mystery of the Roman Ransom.’ I read this book in the sixth grade called ‘Detectives in Togas.’ I also like to read books about the Titanic ever since I saw the movie.”