My favorite childhood author

I am going to start a new mini-series to share with you some of my favorite childhood authors and their books that I enjoyed reading during my growing up years. It is terribly exciting for myself to dedicate time and effort to relish my memories of authors who opened my young mind to wondrous worlds that I still fantasize about from time to time. As a prelude to the series, I would like to introduce the place where I met these authors.

Throughout my childhood, my mama brought us to the nearby public library, as seen from the picture above, on a weekly basis to spend some time with books. We did buy books at home but it was nowhere comparable to the sheer quantity and quality of books available at the library. More importantly for my mama, she did not have to think about shoving and squeezing more books in our storeroom.

The library was very well-organized and had different sections categorized according to their languages, genres and authors. The first floor housed books for young readers while the upper story was mainly stocked with adult books. I remembered having used to wait in line for the librarian to check books out, but with the digital revolution, self-check machines were introduced to hasten the borrowing process.

I must admit it could get quite tiresome when you are forced to sit down and read when you are obviously bustling with energy, ready to sprint and run around. But making weekly pilgrimages down to the library was, in my mama’s opinion, in our best interest because books meant knowledge and therefore, we should be cultivated as young as possible the habit to empower such knowledge. So I remembered a lot of my weekends in the children’s section of the library with my mama, who was not the biggest fan of reading, flipping through pages of colorful drawings as well as reading the text accompanying it.

It was in the library that I met TinTin, Babe the pig, Noddy and Mr. Funny. I realized these stories are unknowingly etched in a little corner of my mind even after many years such that I can still recall their names as if they were some old friends. These children stories all carry important lessons that subsequently did in some ways shape my character and personality. For instance, I learned to share with others by treating library books I borrowed as if they were mine so that the next person will be able to enjoy them to their fullest.

Starting from the library, I am bubbling with excitement to walk down my childhood memory lane with everyone to share fantastical stories written by wonderful authors like Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Carolyn Keene. Keep you guys posted!