Sarala's Reading Biography - It all begins with a book

I took to reading from a very young age. At an age where kids would play with Barbie dolls or fuss over toy cars, I was introduced to the wonderful world of books. I still recall how I would be so put off by the huge eyes that dolls have, that I would just throw them aside and not want to play with them at all. Occasionally when I do take them out, I end up twisting their arms and legs to a point of detaching them from their bodies and throwing the parts all over the floor. My parents had to find something to occupy me with, and since dolls and toys do not work, they turned to books. With the book in my hand, I was all quiet, flipping through its pages, mesmerised by the beautifully coloured pictures and staring at the words. And that was how it all began.

During my childhood days, I remembered reading the Ladybird series, which include stories like “The Three Little Pigs”, “The Hen and the Fox”, “The Ugly Duckling” and the likes. My mother used to read them to me every day and once I could read on my own, I reread them. Like many other kids, I also read Fairy Tales and loved their happily ever after endings, like, “Cinderella”, “Aladdin”, “Jack and the Beanstalk” and how could anyone forget “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. And then I moved on to the Enid Blyton series. My favourites were the ones with many different short stories packed into one book and I recall a particular title “The Banana Robber and Other Stories”. Though I cannot remember the stories in these books anymore, I certainly do remember the morals that these stories used to have which taught me a thing or two about friendship, caring and sharing, and other values.

 As I move on to Upper Primary, I started to get more adventurous with my book choice. I would go to the library every day after school and pick books off the shelves and read them. I went into the library with an open mind and picked any book that catches my eye at that particular instant and started reading them. I recalled picking up Roald Dahl’s “The Magic Finger” and ever since then grew to like his stories and went on to read other stories like “James and the Giant Peach” , “The BFG”, amongst others. I started reading the Sweet Valley series thereafter as most of the girls in my class were going on about it and I decided to see what the hype was about and join in their recess conversations about these stories. The Sweet Valley series got me intrigued at the beginning, and I would go to the library to read the different volumes that I can find. I preferred the “Sweet Valley Twins” series to the “Sweet Valley High” series as the stories were more relatable at that point in time, about sibling rivalry and such. However, my interest in the Sweet Valley series soon waned and I don’t recall having touched or even seen them since.

In my Lower Secondary days, my reading habits were pretty similar. My visits to the library were still very regular. I remember reading books by R. L Stine, the “Goosebumps” series a lot. I never thought that I would be so into horror books, but at that age I was. What got me really hooked to these books was the fact that they were interactive. In a sense that you don’t exactly read the whole book from page 1 to page 100 for example, but while reading you are asked to make choices and to flip to certain pages to see how the story unfolded. If you had picked a different option, the story might have unfolded differently. This was very interesting to me at that age and still is now, as I have not come across another book that is written this way. One particular title that I could remember was “Welcome to the Dead House” which has a creepy looking house on the front cover, and I could still recall my father asking me why I would actually read such horror stories especially before I head to bed at night. Other reads include Adeline yen Mah’s “Chinese Cinderella” which moved me to tears and “The Diary of Anne Frank” which broadened my history knowledge about the war in Germany, the Nazi party, the Jewish Holocaust and also opened my eyes to the injustice that was met out to the Jews during this period of time. I remember thinking to myself, “It’s a good thing there are no wars in Singapore now!”

Thereafter, Literature set texts were basically all that I read till I finish my Junior College education, as school work piled up and I was busy catching up. These texts include, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, Susan Hill’s “I’m the King of the Castle” which I very much enjoyed, though it is pretty morbid. I read a couple of Shakespeare’s classics too, like “Twelfth Night” and “Anthony and Cleopatra”. Other reads include R K Narayan’s “The Guide” and Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” which by A’levels I still had trouble grasping and it’s not until in Dr Poon’s Post Colonial class did I finally grasped this book better.

While waiting for University to start, I took to reading again, trying to find back my love for reading just like I found it as a child. It was not hard to get into the habit of reading again, but this time, instead of heading to the library, I would head to the bookstores to get myself a copy of books I would like to read.  Some of the reads include Jodi Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper”, “Mercy” and my all time favourite “House Rules” which talks about a mother’s unwavering love for her son with Asperger’s syndrome. I like reading books about family, relationships and love, which was why I read Jodi Picoult’s books one after another, despite how depressing they almost always are. I went on to read “Kim Edward’s “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” and my all time favourite, a true story by Marina Nemat “Prisoner of Tehran” where in it, she writes about her own capture and torture that never really left her mind. “Prisoner of Tehran” was not only depressing but also very much shocking and Marina’s strength and will to survive was way beyond admiration and respect. Other reads include “P.S I Love You”, “Where Rainbows End”, “The Gift”, amongst others, by Cecilia Ahern. At the risk of sounding very superficial, it was the beautiful covers that caught my eye initially, but what was inside was even more beautiful.

My reading habit carries through till today, and after entering NIE, I was introduced to more literary works by various authors whom I have not had a chance to read previously. I personally enjoyed books like Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea”, J. M Coetzee’s “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Outside of NIE, I still make trips to the book stores to get myself new books to read for leisure. Though I might not have the time to read them during the school term, I try to read them during the holidays. I am currently reading Gregory Macguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” and I intend to get myself the other books in the Wicked series once I am done with this. Reading widens my mind and introduces me to many new things that I would not have known just by going through everyday life. Our experiences although rich, are limited. There are things that we cannot experience for ourselves. Therefore, reading, to me, is the next best alternative to experiencing all that you have not. Be it magic, horror, real life issues or anything at all, it all begins with a book. And, as George R. R. Martin says “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The Man who never reads lives only one”.