Imagine a young girl, white blonde hair, wide blue eyes, dressed boyishly in shorts and t-shirt. Baring her teeth savagely at everyone, children around her alternatively squeal with fright and laugh teasingly. She stands alone and tiny, her body tense against the wash of disapproval from her peers and often her teachers as well. That child was me, I wasn’t a well liked kid. I got skinned knees, I wandered through the blackberry bushes, I climbed trees and dug in the garden with my hands. I was fearless in the face of all those things, but I just didn’t understand other people and I didn’t know why. I was that odd little smart kid, the one who raced to finish her work so she could spend some quiet time reading. Don’t worry, I made friends eventually, I found people who were like me, and learnt to hide the parts of me that made most people uncomfortable. And though I survived without too many scars, I developed what some might say, was a very nasty habit.
About halfway through year one I discovered the library, and more importantly, that I could hide there during lunch. It was there, between shelves stacked with colourful spines and in the rough feel of paper between finger and thumb I found a place in the world. I was the Paperbag Princess fighting dragons, I ran the streets with Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy and all his doggy pals, I had adventures in the Magic Faraway Tree, I giggled at Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and found friends in his Charlie, Matilda and James. When I was reading I wasn’t a lonely little girl anymore, I didn’t have to think about the real world. Reading had become my place to escape to when things were tough. Reading sustained me through my trauma inducing childhood and teenage years, but by the time I finished it had become so much more than an escape, reading had become something I needed, like food, water and air. Reading had become my socially acceptable addiction from which there was no recovery.
Novel Aspirations 