So I was always THAT kid. The one who would
go to the library and work at lunch, the one who would sit and read at
playtime. My mum used to take me to the library after school where I would love
the bookworm challenges, would fixate on filling my sticker book to the end,
would race to pick up a book and read it the whole night under my covers…until
I got told to sleep. Five times.
I loved books. I loved seeing a story in
front of my eyes, it was like being in another world. I used to dream about the
books I read, dreamt about the characters, being inside the very scene I had
just read. I had one of those run away imaginations when I was young – I could
finish a five hundred paged book in three days maximum. We used to pre-order
every Harry Potter book before it came out, and me and my sister used to sit in
silence, just reading.
We had these boxes at school, you know
those ones that were plastic and where they have the colour dot and if you were
that colour, those books were meant only for you? I was at the near empty box
at the end, where there was only 10 books or so, barely touched, a little
dusty… a little older than the rest. It was the box for the quick readers, the
readers who needed a challenge (or the ones the teachers didn’t have to worry
about.) I was so proud of myself being in that box, that reading time with mum
was always the best time of the night. I had to finish the next book before
anyone else. I had to be the best reader.
I was always surrounded by books; I was
THAT kid.
