What Made Me A Reader – World Book Day 2020

Was there a book you remember reading that made you the bookworm that you are now? I have loved reading for as long as I can remember. But I remember that reading The Magic Faraway Tree was what cemented my love for reading. I read that book so many times that I can still remember parts of the book and the illustrations even though I haven’t looked at the book in years.

I remember my parents taking all 5 of us sisters to the library every Saturday morning and me basically just spending hours there reading and finding new books to fall in love with. I found so many of my favourite childhood books in the library. From The Secret Seven, Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, Cirque Du Freak and so much more. All 5 of us sisters are readers now because of how much time we spent around books.

Our parents are also readers so that I also helped us to become readers as books were always part of our life. Our parents books filled our house and my parents house has bookcases upon bookcases in every room and we still moved our parents older books in the attic as they don’t read as much now as they used to so we could make space for our books.

As all 5 of us were readers and have similar tastes in books we would discuss books together and especially us 3 older ones as teens would all fight over who would get to read the single copy our dad bought us first. I won because I am the oldest (it’s one of the few privileges the eldest has and I took full advantage). We fangirled about Harry Potter in our teens and discussed theories and had heated debates about our favourite characters.

Even now as we all read similar books we will still stay up late discussing and arguing about books and have all the bookish discussions. It’s like having our own book club. We also recommend (read: force) each other to read our favourite books so we can discuss it with them and we go to book events together and YALC too.

I know that for me being surrounded by books and growing up having my sisters to discuss books with has made me the reader that I am.

Books I Love By Authors In The UK – Part 2

This is the second part to discussing books that are written by UK authors. I think that they deserve all the love so go read these books!

You can read part 1 here

1 Reasons to Stay Alive & Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig – I absolutely love his work and how open he is about mental health. I highly recommend reading his books.

2 No Big Deal by Bethany Rutter – I loved the body positivity in her book so much! Everyone should read this! You can read my review here

3 The Loneliest Girl in the Universe & The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James – I love all her books but my favourite is definitely Loneliest Girl and Quiet at the End of the World. You can read my review for Quiet here

4 The Hormone Diaries by Hannah Witton – I love the work she does and her book was so insightful and I definitely recommend it!

5 Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer – One of my childhood favourite books! I absolutely adore this series and I am so excited for the spinoff. I also read his new adult fantasy book and I loved that too! You can read my review for Artemis Fowl here

6 The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson – A book with dinosaurs! Obviously I would love this trilogy! It is fast paced and action packed and if you love dinosaurs then you need to read these!

7 The State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury – This book was one that came in a book box and took me by surprise! I really loved it!

8 It’s All in your Head by Rae Earl – A book about mental health written specially for the youth. It covers topics that are relevant to the youth so this one I definitely recommend reading.

9 Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes by Holly Bourne – Holly has so many books but this one is my favourite! Another book that has wonderful complex mental health rep and I especially loved how she wrote about being kind to each other and yourself. You can read my review here

10 Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz – Another childhood book that I loved and so excited to see the series is being continued.

So I will probably be writing a part 3 soon! Please do let me know any authors from the UK that you love!

World Book Day – My Top 5 Childhood Reads

Thursday 7th March is World Book Day and a group of us book bloggers thought it would be fun to share our favourite childhood books. So there will be a blog post every hour all day today from each of us!

The blogger before me in the group is Connie at Connie Reads so if you missed her post do go check it out!

As far back as my memory goes I have always been a reader. My parents are both readers so as kids we would all go every Saturday morning to the library to spend several hours there and I completely fell in love with books and reading. I still have very vivid memories of searching and discovering new books. And it is where I discovered all of my favourite childhood books.

1 The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton – this is the book that made me the booknerd that I am. I know I enjoyed reading even before reading this book but this is what cemented my love for reading!

2 The Secret Seven and The Famous Five by Enid Blyton – can you tell I was a huge Enid Blyton fan?! I decided to include both series as one because otherwise this will just become an, I love Enid Blyton post. I have also read both series countless number of times. I adored the stories and the friendships in these books. I still remember taking them out and reading them so often that I didn’t even need to read them in order anymore.

3 Harry Potter by JK Rowling – of course I had to mention this series, I have been obsessed with these books since I first read them! I stills remember insisting that my dad had to take me to asda at midnight to go pick up the books as soon as they released! Then i would read the books in a day especially as my sisters would be impatiently waiting to be able to read it after me. It’s safe to say my original copies are battered and almost falling apart.

4 Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer – this series introduced me to antiheroes and I fell in love with complex morally grey characters! Artemis is such a great character and the amount of sass and sarcasm in these books is unreal! I love it so much!

5 Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz – a teenage boy who becomes a spy for MI6? Of course I’m going to love it! I practically grew up reading this series and recently a new book was announced continuing his story so yup I’m definitely going to be reading it!

Honourable mention goes to the Cirque Du Freak series by Darren Shan and the Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman! I loved those books growing up!

So these are my favourite childhood books. There are plenty more but these are my absolute favourites! What books did you love as a kid? Were you always a reader?

And don’t forget to go check out Beth’s post at 2.30pm for what her favourite childhood books were over at Booksnest.

My Favourite Childhood Books

So I’ve been trying to get my little cousins to read more and it got me thinking about all the books I read as a kid and how there was some which were clearly favourites. Books that were read multiple times and I just could not get enough! A lot of the books I read as a kid is books I borrowed from the library and I’m actually really sad that I don’t have my own copies of them. I definitely need to buy them at some point (amongst the other thousands of books I want to buy)!

So I thought I would share some of my all time favourite books with you all!

Of course I have to mention Harry Potter! These books were a huge part of my childhood! From the age of 10 I was well and truly hooked! It has become a huge part of my childhood and I have some great childhood memories about the midnight book releases.

I was also a huge fan of Enid Blyton books as a kid. I loved The Magic Faraway Tree, The Secret Seven and Famous Five. These books I have read countless number of times! I always wanted to be part of a secret group like the secret seven as a kid!

Another book I loved was the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. This was my first anti-hero story and I loved it! Disney are making the first book into a film which will be released next year and I cannot wait for it!

One of my favourite classics as a kid was Black Beauty. I remember reading this for the first time when I was 11 years old and completely falling in love! I must have read the book about 10 times in year 6!

The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz was another series I loved. A teenage MI6 agent? Of course I had to read it! The series ended a few years ago but now he’s starting the series again from where it ended and I am so ready to be back in that world!

The Cirque Du Freak series by Darren Shan was another favourite of mine. It had vampires and the story was so complex and interesting.

I adored The Chronicles of Narnia as a kid! My favourites are Prince Caspian and of course The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. Such magical books! I wish I had a wardrobe that took me to a magical land!

So these are some of my absolute favourite childhood books! I always feel like rereading them but I’m scared they won’t live up to my childhood memories. Anyone else feel like that?

Let me know what your favourite childhood books!

Also any books you would recommend for a 10 year old now!