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.

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.