“Dad, what does that sign say?”

That was me, pointing at a roadsign that was (as I was soon to learn) for restricting the speed on that road to 60km/h. I was about four or five years old when I asked that, and I couldn’t read yet. But I knew that “big people” could, and I wanted to know more. So I was a compulsive reader even before I knew my ABCs!

Or maybe I was just compulsively curious. I think a big part of the love of words is a natural curiosity as to “what’s out there that I don’t know yet?”. My parents instilled this love of words in me from an early age, by reading all manner of books to my brother and I.

As I’ve grown up I’ve always been most content and most easily entertained when there has been reading material within reach. Detergent bottles, cereal boxes, medication package inserts… And it doesn’t even matter if it’s the same bottle or box or insert I’ve read a hundred times before, as long as my eyes are drinking in their daily dose of letters, words and life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 10:27 am by Leonie and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.