In a kind of overly confident manner I’d like to claim that I am a reader. Now considering how little reading I have done in the last couple of years I do feel like this may be a farce but all the same I shall claim it.
When I was little and we were learning to read in school, I remember my teachers being rather discouraged by me and my abilities. I was very slow, probably disinterested and – I don’t know – just not the amazing reader that 7 year-olds are supposed to be. But I struggled my way through. Whether or not I enjoyed it, I cannot remember.
What I can tell you is that I was always attract to anything involving creativity and I think this was inspired by literature. Yes I may not have been the best reader but I still had grown up among books and even in my 7 year old room there was a bookshelf. My parents had read to me, along with all stereotypical fairy tales, a lot of Dr Seuss and probably the complete works of Beatrice Potter (creator of Peter Rabbit) and I think this helped me develop a belief and connection with the arts and all things creative predominantly literature. (Also I didn’t watch a lot of TV at all. And although I’m not completely against TV I do think this a factor and it is unsurprising that so little inspiration to read comes out of my TV driven generation)
Now jump forward another couple of years to a ten year old me. At this point I hated Harry Potter. I had watched the first movie with my parents when I was quite young and Fluffy, the three headed dog, had terrified me and I had vowed never to have anything to do with the Potteredom ever again. But my father eventually goaded me into watching the movie again about 4 years later and I was hooked. I watched all four movies (which were out at the time) in a weekend and then started reading the fifth book. An odd number to start at, I do realize but the truth. It was the only book in the series that I owned and I wanted to know what happened next. After that I read six and then from one to four and then had to wait patiently for the seventh book to come out.
Now according to my parents my love of reading started with Harry Potter or at least was kindled by it. I don’t remember enough of my life before then to comment myself but I certainly read a hell of a lot afterwards. When I first read them it took me about a week to read each one. As the books got longer I got stronger and more enthralled now (if I have time) I can read them all in a week.
After that I couldn’t keep my nose out of a book for very long. I was one of those people who didn’t feel like the fitted in with the world around them but in books nobody judged me and nobody cared and I could surround myself with the most amazing things.
As I got older I learnt how to deal with (and spend more time in) the real world and I started to find my space in it but I never let go of that love of reading. Reading is what taught me, it taught me my morals and my goals and my ever so over-the-top opinions. At the
moment in my life I haven’t worked hard enough at making time for the books that I love so much. When I do pick up a novel that I love, it is like I never left and when I stuck my head in the comfortable pages of Half a Yellow Sun, I was excited by the simple experience of reading.
I don’t think I have ever experienced anything better than being lost for hours in the speckled pages of a book. Our world is scary and harsh but the worlds we create are spectacular beyond even realities potential. For little girls (and boys) like me who don’t feel like the world accepts them, books are there to hold your hand and be your friend and guide you through your greatest perils.
Novels, writing, stories of all kinds have been there as something I can turn to throughout my life and if my parents are right I may just owe some thanks to Joan Rowling and Harry Potter for leading me onto the path.
Plain Old Glasses 