I was sort of an outsider when I was a kid, I only had a few friends, very good friends, but not too many. When I was 12 we moved, not far, just one town over, but I did not know anybody and I had a lot of free time on my hands.
I found sanctuary in the local library, it was dusty and dark, and just how a library should be.
I had always read a lot, it is what we did in our family, especially my mom. I remember going to the library to get her books whenever she was home sick from work. I would get three or four books and she had usually read at least two of them before.
A little while after the school year had started a classmate who had noticed I read a lot, handed me a book. She told me to read it and bring it back the next day. I looked at her like she was crazy, I mean the book was 300 pages. How would I ever get through it in one day?
I did however. I finished it at 2 AM that night and when Harry beat back Professor Quirrell and Lord Voldemort and Gryffindor won the house cup, I admit, I cried a little.
That was my first "big" book. 300 pages is not a lot, but when you are 12 and you have mostly read 150-200 page books, it is overwhelming.
From then on, there was no stopping me. Later that year I read Bent Haller's Lille Lucifer which is a 850 page tome filled with pure, golden awesome.
I read just about everything I could get my hands on and it has been like that ever since. I find it hard to explain exactly what it is about books that make me happy. But I stumbled upon this image the other day, and it is the closest I have ever come to an explanation.
If any of you Danes out there remember the old Bookie bookmarks they had at the libraries, they were sort of the same. I was actually looking for images of those when I found this.
I used to have a ton of them, now I cannot find a single one, it makes me a little bit sad.
The bookmarks had a drawing of a boy reading a book on the front. He would be lying in a bathtub or sitting under a tree, and on the other side, he would be diving under water in a submarine or exploring through a jungle.
And that is exactly what books are like. They are a gateway to a world beyond this one. A place where magic is real and evil pirates kidnap wenches, where good always triumphs over evil and where everyone gets exactly what they deserve, good or bad.
I believe I just answered my own question; I love books because when you start reading, anything is possible.
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