As I look back on my writing journey in
this month of remembrance, it’s easy to see how it all began: I was read to as
a child.
My grandparents came from very small
communities on Canada’s east coast. They didn’t spend years and years in
school. But in those days, students memorized lengthy pieces and the poetry of
that experience made my grandfather love reading, a pleasure he kindly shared
with me. In addition to reading informational books, he and my grandmother read
the Bible every day, and when I was three, they introduced me to the library.
What a treasure-trove I discovered
there! Shelves and shelves of stories. A world of imagination. Time travel.
Space travel. I could go anywhere and everywhere without leaving home.
It was powerful.
I was hooked.
When you instill the love of reading in
a child, you encourage her to think and dream. You give her a vocabulary for ideas
both sensible and wild. And when she has words, there’s no restraining her.
It’s only natural that her communications wind up on paper. Books are her
examples, her models, her monuments.
I became a writer because I first became
a reader. For that I thank you, Grandpa.
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For more of my writing, please visit www.susanbarclay.wordpress.com
