The author reflects on the development of her own reading life and how that rich reading life failed to influence how she taught reading early in her career. During graduate studies, while researching in classrooms where reading workshop was the instructional model and through talking to those exemplary teachers, the author came to understand both the how and why of teaching readers, not books. Drawing on experience and research literature, the author offers ways to develop students' reading lives within the context of English language arts classrooms.