Childhood can never be a complete one without the famous children's writer Enid Blyton in it. Like many of us, my proper reading started with Enid Blyton's adventure series in which the characters go out to discover mysteries on their own. When I was younger, I often used to imagine that I was one of the characters invovled in any book that I read as it made me feel like I was in an imaginary world. I used to dream a lot about being a character in the book and I used to blabber on and on to my parents about the books I read. After Enid Blyton's children stories, I was addicted to Russell Lee's True Singapore Ghost Stories and I enjoyed how frightening the stories were. I was often doubtful about whether the stories were absolutely true but at the same time, I was shocked that such frightening incidents had taken place in Singapore. I used to read these ghost stories especially at night to scare myself even more and thinking about it now makes me laugh at myself for the things I used to do when I was younger. Russell Lee's series of True Singapore Ghost Stories were very addictive to me as those were the books I used to look for first when I entered any library.
When I moved on to my secondary education, I took a step back from fiction books and I dwelled more into non-fiction series of books like the Reader's Digest monthly publication. I could clearly remember that I had forced my parents to subscribe to a yearly subscription of Reader's digest and I used to carry the book wherever I go to until I finished reading it. I often looked forward to the next month's publication because of the very encouraging true stories that were published in it. Since then, I enjoyed reading the series of Reader's Digest because of the new words that I used to learn from it and I used to also enjoy the section dedicated to jokes and riddles from the book as well. I started developing the interest of reading the newspapers almost everyday too. I used to regard the habit of reading the newspapers as a chore but as I grew older, I realized the importance of knowing what is happening around me and that was only possible by reading the newspapers. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series were a huge hit among many including my classmates who used to force me into reading her books. I tried reading them but I could not connect with her stories. I enjoyed the Happry Potter movies though.
Studying Literature at Junior College meant that I had to read more fiction books for some time like Shakepeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. These books were tough for me initially especially Shakespeare's books because it took me long to understand Shakespeare's English. However, after awhile, I got the hang of it and I was very much comfortable reading Shakespeare's writing. Again, I found myself dreaming about life in the 16th century and how people even dressed in the 16th century. Only after taking up Literature in Junior College, I developed the interest in poetry such that I started reading poetry in my own time and I even started deveoped the passion in writing my own poetry as well. My love for poetry has been continuing till today such that I still do write poems during my freetime. There was a book in particular that I had read that is still in my mind today which is Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes.
I fell in love with this book to the extent that I read it all over again very recently. It is the female protagonist in the plot that I admire since then because of her courage in the story.
In the past four years or so, I have started reading slightly advanced readings that actually teach me a lot more about other authors and their objectives in writing. These readings have definitely helped me to learn more about different texts and they allow me to know how I could teach these texts to my students in future. Also, it is heart-warming that my modules at school allow me to read children's Literature all over again like fairytales and even the series of Narnia. I am more than happy to actually say that I am trying my best to balance out my readings between fiction and non-fiction. I believe that reading allows me to step out into a different word and it is truly an escape from reality for me. To me, reading is definitely 'dreaming with open eyes.'
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