How it all began

When I was six, I didn’t know I would grow up to be a writer. In fact, I thought it was exciting that I was going to be able to read now that I was six and starting school.

I was wrong.

Reading didn’t happen at six. I was seven before I could finally read.

But from the first day when I started Grade One, I bugged my mother to let me go to the public library. I was so anxious to finally be able to read. I begged her and begged her. Finally,during the second week of school, she finally gave in and off we went.

At the library

It wasn’t my first time there. I loved the library. But on that day I was especially excited. I no longer had to get the books out of the bins.

I went right to the tall shelves and started pulling out books and looking at the covers. Mrs. Hoover, the librarian, told me I should be looking at the children’s books in the bins but I knew they weren’t what I wanted. They were just picture books.

I could read real books now! I went home that day with a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit tucked proudly under my arm. I curled up on the sofa as soon as I got home. I ran my hand over the smooth, thick plastic cover of the book jacket and smiled at the picture of the rabbit on the cover.

Then I opened the book and that’s when I discovered something awful. I could NOT read!

I stared at the jumbled letters and the tears ran down my cheeks. I sobbed and sobbed.

Though my mother tried to console me, it didn’t help. I couldn’t read.

“But I go to school now,” I wailed.

“But you have to learn to read first. It takes time,” my mother said.

I did eventually learn to read that year though I never did attempt to read The Velveteen Rabbit again.

Last summer, I was at a garage sale where someone who’d obviously been a collector, had multiple copies and versions of The Velveteen Rabbit for sale. They were soft cover, hard cover. Big. Small. I”m pretty sure one copy was that same copy the local library had.

But I didn’t buy one.

I thought; what if I still couldn’t read it?