A case study of one child, Alicia, is used to explore how children's identities as readers are constructed across time as they move thorough school. Attention to time helps us attend to how students draw on ongoing, familial, and historical resources in ways that are both recursive and future-oriented as they construct themselves as readers across long periods of time. As this case study reveals, Alicia's literacy practices are situated within complex dimensions of race, schooling, and literacy learning. The paper draws on a set of interviews with Alicia and her family that span Grades 1-8. Counter-stories presented in these interviews are considered alongside Alicia's developing reading practices and identity construction. The paper explores how life experiences, family stories and literacy practices, and larger historical accounts contribute to a student's sense of reading identity. Appended are Alicia's Poems. (Contains 2 tables.)