My dad loved books and he instilled that love of books in me. We spent many Saturday afternoons browsing through the dusty shelves of a second-hand bookshop, where my brothers and I would be allowed to choose a book each - and sometimes two - to take home. Oh the delight of being surrounded by so many books, and the agony of deciding which one to choose.
I still remember some of them now. The book of ballet that told all the stories behind the ballets and inspired in me the desire to be a ballet dancer - two or three ballet lessons where I constantly danced out of step soon put me off that idea. The travel books that inflamed my desire to see as many different countries as possible - a desire I still have today, the poetry books which we all used to take turns to read, the story books about magical wooden horses, vengeful leprechauns and fairies, flying carpets and naughty schoolgirls which inspired my love of reading and writing. That's where it all started, where the budding writer was born, in those backstreet second-hand bookshops with their creaking shelves of passed-on books. So I owe my love of reading and writing to my dad.
Unfortunately Dad died when he was 51, he never lived to see me become a writer but I'm sure he knows and I hope he now has time 'to stand and stare.'
What about you? What inspired your love of reading and writing?
Karen King writes all sorts of books, her latest one is Get Writing: Children's Fiction, published by How To Books. Visit her website at www.karenking.net for more details.
2 comments:
Lovely post, Karen. I think my love of books and writing came from my mum. She was a big Agatha Christie fan and some of my earliest memories are going to my local library with her. I remember the excitement knowing that I could choose four books in those days.
I used to love reading Agatha Christie too, Ann,when I was in my teens. And I remember going to the library and choosing my four books - in the summer holidays I used to read all four of them in one day!
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