How Did We Come to Love Reading?

This is sort of the first ever discussion (or sometimes babbling) post on A Page of Heaven and we thought it would be pretty appropriate to start with the start. Originally, Adelena had wanted to include why and how she started A Page of Heaven and book blogging/reviewing too, but ultimately decided that could be done in a separate post, maybe next week? So, without further ado…

Once upon a time, there was a crazy, hyperactive little girl who thought reading for was boring and nerdy people. She had been the sort of kid who told everyone reading and books were “not her thing” even though she had never actually tried to sit down and finish a book. However, as fate would have it, a shiny, new library was built a five-minutes walk from her home. Being a curious nine-year-old, she simple had to find out what all the fuss was about (plus, she had only been a library once before when her aunt had helped her make a membership card).

Upon her arrival, she spotted a bright yellow doorway framing a stairwell leading down to a basement with the words “Children’s Section” splashed above it. It was literally calling her name. Studying the murals painted on the right side of the staircase, she descended and at the bottom of the steps, walked into the land of paper and ink.

She had never seen so many books in one place; there must have been thousands of them in that basement alone! Examining the shelves, she ended up at the cluster label “7-year-olds to 9-year-olds” and after much pondering, decided upon a few novels, two of which were Sheltie the Shetland Pony by Peter Clover and Ruby the Red Fairy by Daisy Meadows.

In the following months, she would frequent the library up to twice a day—whenever she had free time between schoolwork and playing at the playground—as she simply could not stop immersing herself in the fictional world. Prior to the library visit and this sudden obsession with reading, the little girl’s  English language grades had been unpleasant, to say the least. However, after months—yes, months—of binge reading whenever free time was available, she (surprise, surprise!) actually topped her class in English language.

As a reward, her teacher gifted her a book—Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi—and encouraged her to continue avidly reading. The funny thing was, the girl had never realized she loved reading until that very moment; her passion for stories was something that gradually creeped up on her, remaining unnoticed until someone else pointed it out.

That little girl was me, which I guess was pretty obvious. And up to this day, after eight years, her fondness of imagined tales come to life in the form of alphabets, words and sentences had not faded in the least. In fact, it had only grown!

So I might have dramatized my discovery of the library just a little, but the magic of it was true to the bone. And yes, I do remember all the little details such as the first books I had checked out and how it hit me that I had fallen utterly in love with reading.

                                                                     
I like to believe that my love for reading was cultivated ever since I was a wee sprout in my mum’s womb. She once mentioned that when she was pregnant with me, she loved reading. Mystery novels, to be precise.

In the early years of my childhood, she’d read me bedtime stories (and I thought that only happened in the movies). I think that it’s because I’m her firstborn, and the first child in the family always received special benefits. ;)

My dad would always fear whenever my mum and I stepped into a bookstore. Not only would we be in the store for hours, but we’d only leave with at least one book in our hands. My dad often complained (jokingly) about how I’d devoured books so quickly that he’d threaten not to bring me to the bookstore in future (but I’d always end up there anyway).

Shortly after, I discovered a wonderful place filled with treasures: the Library. I’d borrowed stacks of books and finish them off as quickly as a starving kid that had just found food. Remember how I said that my mum loved reading mystery novels? Well, I certainly took after her as each trip to the library would reap at least two Nancy Drew novels. That leads up to this very day, where I’m still borrowing stacks of books from the library—though I wouldn’t finish them as quickly due to burdens such as school work and other priorities eating up my free time.

I’m glad that I’m on a two-month semester break now. At least without homework, I have more time to read. :) And yes, here is my stack of books for your viewing pleasure:

Now that we’ve shared our stories, we want to know yours! How did you come to love reading? Feel free to comment away below and stay tune next week to learn how A Page of Heaven and us blogging/reviewing in general came about!