How I Became a Reader

I don’t know about you, but me and reading are pretty close right now — this is how it started.

But it’s always been that way, for as long as I can remember.

Being off work for 7 months due to a global pandemic, I’ve managed to re-kindle my relationship and love affair with reading. It’s always been there, simmering in the background, but has at some points in my life, gotten lost, what with three years studying an academically rigorous degree.

I’m now at a point in my life where I can choose what I want to read and when — and I am very lucky enough to be in that position.

Lockdown has made me whizz through books at a speed that has reminded me of my childhood self. I would spend days alone, glued to the pages of Jacqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman, or Michael Morpurgo. Unlike the other kids, I didn’t want to spend time outside, but in the comfort of my book. I guess you could say I was a quiet child, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think. I thought a lot and still do.

As I get older and more into books, I can’t help but look back at my childhood and wonder where this love affair with reading came from.

It’s something I used to be self-conscious of in my teens but then started to embrace after having an incredible English literature teacher at secondary school, who made liking Shakespeare and John Steinbeck seem cool.

Later in life, my heart told me to pursue an English literature degree because it was my true passion — but I ended up going with my head and studied history. My logic was that it was more practical and could open up more doors for my career. Surprise, that hasn’t happened yet. But — on a more significant note, I was worried that studying books for three years would cure my love of them, so I didn’t.

But now I’m more bookwormy than ever before. I structure my months around what books I’m going to read and spend a large proportion of my time reading and writing about books. I use the online world to write about my experiences with books to inspire others and encourage a love of reading. But I’m still trying to figure out where this all started.

I think I know why — and this how I became a bookworm.

It was around a dinner time discussion with the family that the conversation gradually led towards books — my favourite topic. In between our shared hatred of Normal People and what kind of genres we all liked to read, I asked my Mum, where did my reading come from?

My Mum has never been a massive reader, she liked to read, but not in the way that I do. It seemed strange to me that my love of reading could have sprung from nowhere. I was always fascinated by my Grandad’s bookcases, that I can remember towering over me when I was very small. But it must have gone deeper than that.

At school, I was always ahead of my peers, reading books that were considered way beyond my age range. My Mum couldn’t keep up but wasn’t generally worried about what I was reading. If you’re going to learn about things at all, surely it’s better to read about it?

I’ve always been incredibly quiet and found comfort in words, spending time with myself and my thoughts, so I guess that’s always going to give me an affinity for reading. I’d rather spend a night in with a book than go trawling on the town. And I’ve always been that way.

I was adopted by my lovely Mum when I was just over seven years old. Before that, I had spent just over two years of my life being shuttled around between foster care placements and children’s homes. Along with my brother, who sadly passed away at the start of the year, I was placed under a full care order, never to have formal contact with our birth parents again.

During this time of instability, I came to find comfort in books. Books didn’t let me down, they could always come with me wherever they went and I could turn to them when I felt sad or upset and they would always cheer me up.

Books were a source of stability during a period in my life which was rather like a rollercoaster. I turned to reading when I was trying to cope with change in my life — and I guess the habit stayed.

Despite moving schools, homes, and having to leave friends frequently — I always had books and I could always count on them.

Looking back on it now, and how I was as a child, this sense of instability and distrust of people and adults generally, led me to be a very quiet child. I was even diagnosed as a mute, and in the first few years of my Mum adopting me, we would have to communicate between bits of scrappy paper when something was wrong or I felt upset.

Whenever I tried to communicate what I felt, this physical barrier in my throat would come up and the words just wouldn’t come out. To this day, I find it incredibly hard to vocalise my feelings, which is perhaps another reason why I turn to writing so much. These difficulties still impact my life, friends, and my relationship — but I’m learning more about how to keep it at bay every day.

Anyway, books were always a source of comfort for me as a child, I revelled in the chance to shut myself off from the real world and not have to talk to people — reading was my happy time, and it was socially acceptable.

I guess books have always been with me and reading has been a habit I’ve built up over the years. Born from necessity and instability, and carried on throughout my life as I try and navigate the problems of being an extreme introvert.

You may be asking, but why reading? Couldn’t you turn to TV, music, or games to find that same comfort?

And sure, I could, but I also valued reading for learning about the experience of others and relating it to what I was going through at the time.

When I was in foster care and after I read a lot by Jacqueline Wilson who wrote books about problematic families and children growing up, but most prominently, is known for the Tracy Beaker series, which tells the story of a young girl who was placed into foster care. Although when it was accompanied by a popular BBC children’s program, it became somewhat sensationalised and made being in care look fun, at the time, the books provided me with a source of comfort.

I even wrote to Jacqueline Wilson later in life, to thank her for her books and explained how they had helped me so much and she did reply, which was truly special, I’ll treasure her letter forever.

When I read her books, I knew there were others out there who felt the same way I did and knew what I was going through. Even though I didn’t want to talk to other people around me necessarily— I could relate to others through reading, and that became important for me.

In my later years and especially now, words and language have a unique way of calming me and I find great pleasure in reading powerful prose or filling my head with fictional characters.

I love words, stories, and ideas and believe that literature, in particular, is a powerful and unique form of escapism yes, but also a form of education in itself. I could go on about this for days — but fiction is more like real life than we think and is a unique space to talk about the things that matter.

So in brief, I became a reader because of my unique circumstances when I was young, and the sense of comfort I found in it from a young age. I guess because it’s been a habit so long it would be a pretty hard one to break — not that I ever would want to.

I will always view reading as a source of stability, regardless of what stage I am in my life, and I am incredibly lucky I can now read for pleasure.

I love to learn about why and how people started reading. How did you start? Is there a particular moment in your life when you remember really getting into it? Let’s have a conversation in the comments, I would love to hear from you.