When I was a little girl, I used to read for hours at a time. I didn’t care for playing outside, or practicing my music; making new friends was a chore, and I hated sports. Real life and real people weren’t nearly as exciting as the latest Brian Jacques novel or finishing The Lord of the Rings. These books taught me so much about what it means to stand up for others; to push on when things get tough; to love even when you don’t feel loved.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way books affected me, and so I though I’d take a little trip down memory lane today.
I don’t have any recollection of learning to read. I must have been taught at some point, but words just came easy to my young mind. I wanted to be transported, to explore new worlds, to go where no little girl had gone before; and words were my gateway. One of my most treasured possessions is a children’s book: The River Bank and Other Stories from the Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I have this beautifully illustrated copy that my dad used to read to me before bed. My parent’s were both big advocates of reading, and singing, and never being afraid to say I love you. I think those are the most important things they’ve ever given me.
I remember my oldest brother, always concerned that I grow up thinking for myself, and learning about the world, buying me a copy of Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece, which is a book far more profound to me than it’s simple art and story would have you believe. Someone’s made an animation of it that I’ll link here if you’re interested. I think of this book as one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever been given.
As I grew, I discovered all kinds of different worlds and stories that I could inhabit. Today, I might be off saving unicorns with Arianna in the Unicorns of Balinor series by Mary Stanton. Tomorrow, maybe I’d scare myself silly battling Jupiter in the Deptford Mice Trilogy by Robin Jarvis. After that, maybe I’d go cheer on Coraline in Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name. And after I was through with all the adventure? It might be time for something more relaxing, like a boat ride down the river with Rat and Mole in yet another reread of the Wind in the Willows.
These books allowed me to experience so many different places in my mind, that I could never possibly get to in real life. And I loved every minute of it. I’m so grateful to every author who sits down to write, and so freely gives beauty to children. Because to my mind, in a way, every word they share is an invitation:
“Come in. Welcome. We missed you. Enjoy.”
It’s funny; I feel so removed from my childhood. Like… I’m looking back on myself through a filmy veil. I can’t ever seem to reach through, to get back to who I was. I’ve become much more forceful in personality; more easily angered by the little things; unable to reconcile the way the world is with the way I desperately want it to be.
But if there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s that books manage to act as an emotional conduit for me. They make me talk about things I didn’t realize needed to be discussed; they provide an escape when life’s not going the way I had hoped; they’re always there, constant, unchanging, waiting for me to come back so they can share something new the next time I pop in for a visit.
I still love to read. I will always love to read. And I think of really great authors as nothing less than wizards, sharing their magic with the world.
– Elishiva out
Picture link:
http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookinfo.phtml?nr=1313840799&l=en&seller=-csmx
Notes from Nowhere 