I remember all the summers, when I was a child, were warm and full of promise. Waking up with the day ahead to fill as I chose, reading, writing, sunbathing. It was a time before sunscreen and skin cancer, when you could lay in the sun all day and not even turn pink. I don’t remember being bored, but I do remember enjoying endless days lost in my books, or cycling to the library to get more adventures.

Without books I don’t think I would have survived my childhood, escaping into another world or another time seemed to be essential. The first book that really hooked me into reading was the magician’s Nephew, it was the first time I had read a book from cover to cover and I remember being so proud of myself, but what was really magical was the escape to another world, one that had different problems from my own, that could all be resolved, neatly by the end. I think that is why the magician’s Nephew today is still special to me. With books I created the childhood I wanted, trips abroad, adventures and mysteries to solve as well as romance. I could drop into another person’s life and be someone else for a while.

I think the most important book for me today is called the secret life of bees. Why is it so special? Because it is the story of a girl who goes in search of people who knew her dead mother. The book is so well written the author describes the longing and sheer determination to know that special person even though the child’s memory is blank. The way the writer describes how important it is for the child to know her mother, the need to have some point of reference for self, that it really is a joy to read. I think the writing must be autobiographical somewhere, because of the feelings and emotions she conveys reflect my own experience that I don’t believe that anyone could write with such conviction unless they knew.