My reading history

MY READING HISTORY
(I did have a picture here but it can't be put here so....hope you look at the file i sent through the email!)


Books were a luxury in Burma and the only book I ever had was for school when I started my Kindergarten year at age five. The pictures helped me to understand what the strange squiggly Burmese letters were meant to say. “My name is ‘blank’ and I have ‘blank’ amount of brothers and sisters. I wake up early. I make my bed. I wash my face. I brush my teeth. I eat breakfast. I go to school.” And so on. It was a thrilling read. Well, not exactly ‘thrilling’ but it did introduce me to the mechanics of putting meaning to written words, which proved to be a good basis in my reading life. I was more interested in the pictures, and because I wanted to know what the story was behind the pictures, as simple as they were, it made me work harder to find out the meaning of each word. Thus, I began to read in Burmese.
During my one term in Kindergarten, before I was whisked off to Thailand, I was taught to read the English alphabet and could proudly read AND write the words ‘apple’, ‘airplane’, ‘car’, ‘banana’ and ‘train’. I also knew what they were because my teacher had a plastic miniature model of each one. I remember my English test consisted of the teacher randomly picking three of those five things and we had to name them and spell out the words. I gladly took my test and passed with flying colours. Our reward was to go out to break early as soon as our turn was up and we succeeded our task. However, the test did not go smoothly for the real ‘Forrest Gump’ (before Forrest became Forrest), my male cousin and childhood best-friend, who was not as quick at learning. He was a year older than I, but had to stay a year behind in school because he was a bit ‘slower’ than the rest. His only friend (apart from me) was ‘coconut head’, aptly named because his head was shaved bald and did indeed look like a coconut. When it was his turn, the teacher pointed at the plastic yellow banana and asked him, “What is this?”
His reply was, “Banana.” Correct, but he said it in Burmese. The teacher, who was not a patient lady, asked again. “Banana”, he says, confused at having to repeat himself.
“No. Not in Burmese!”
“Oh! Banana”, he replies. This time he uses the Kachin name for banana.
The now almost exasperated teacher tried once more. With her pink face she explained the situation again, this time in Kachin (Luckily she was also Kachin like us, even though she still taught us in Burmese.) “I don’t want you to tell me what it is in Kachin or Burmese. This is an English test. You are supposed to tell me what the word is in English. Ok? ... Now let’s try again. What is this?”
“Banana.” This time he says it in Burmese. Again. I was watching the whole of this exchange from the door as I waited for my cousin. The teacher had reached boiling point by this time. My poor cousin was sat there rigid as she let off her steam on him.
I have to admit that I found this very amusing and embarrassing in equal measure at that time. Now, in retrospect, whilst it still has its comical elements, my cousin’s lack of understanding about the differences in languages and what was required of him shows the teacher’s failure to engage him in learning English. To him, it was just a banana. He already knew it by two names, so a third didn’t seem necessary to him or made any sense. She asked him what it was not how to call it in English. This was their communication barrier and neither of them even knew it. As a teacher, I hope to show more kindness and patience to the pupils who, like my cousin, find language difficult to comprehend.
My love of reading didn’t really begin until my second year in Thailand. Ironically enough, my teacher at the International School was actually English, from Newcastle. She introduced us to the magical world of Puddle Lane and I was taken under its spell. Magicians, witches, giants, talking mice and much more than a little girl from Burma could ever dream of. Unlike most avid readers’ experiences, my parents did not read with me or tell me bedtime stories. In fact, I had to sneakily read my books at night, under the duvet cover with a torchlight and pretend to sleep when my parents came to check on me. They also reprimanded us for reading at the dining table. However, they never told us not to read books but they did mention that they would prefer for us to read ‘real’ books like non-fiction (war victim autobiographies was my father’s choice) and the newspaper, or at least Time magazine.
As I mentioned before, books were not common in my home country at that time, and therefore I always respected books as if they were living beings. They were to be read with care and placed nicely on a table when you were not reading them. I would say I was in awe of books as much as I was about the stories inside them. One vivid memory is of the librarian, Miss Jenny, showing us a very old copy of The Bible. It had a musty smell and the pages were tea-stained brown but this only added to its mystery and splendour in my seven-year-old eyes.
I loved our ‘story-time’ with Miss Jenny and the two stories she read aloud to us were Charlotte’s Web and Westside School. She was a great story-teller and had the voice to suit. She would make the characters come to life by creating different voices for each one and even her mannerisms changed as she went from one character to the next. I noticed that even ‘the naughty ones’ were quiet and gave her their full attention. I remember I wanted to be just like her, a librarian so I too could be surrounded by books that smelt old and that smelt young. Books all had their place, their section, we were taught by her. There was non-fiction, fiction, science-fiction, religion, geography and so on. Books were the whole world to me, and still are to a great degree.
In ‘First Grade’, at age six I went from Puddle Lane to Romana Quimby, Age 8 (a book I still own to this day) and Roald Dahl’s The Witches, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was also introduced to C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia but I only read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe because it was the only book I was given from the series. My thirst for reading was quenched only by the books I was given as presents and the three books a week allowance from the school library. This love of the library increased as I moved to England. I found the worlds of Mary Poppins, The Babysitters’ Club series, Milly-Molly-Mandy, Mrs. Pepperpot, The Borrowers, Sadler Wells series (my ballet infatuation period), graduating to Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice (and all the other Austen novels), and other novels with names I have now forgotten. The books I enjoyed were the adventurous types until I was a teenager, when I began to like reading of great romances, tragedies, comedies or all three combined.
I never managed to completely leave behind my love for children’s fiction or for teenage fiction, as I am the unashamed owner of all The Princess Diaries series. I find more joy in reading fiction for the younger readers as the books tend to be quick-paced and unhindered by such sophisticated vocabulary present in ‘adult’s fiction’ that I find difficult to wade through. My other love is film, which ties in nicely with my love for literature as the two go hand in hand more these days. If I have not read the classics, I have knowledge of them through the films and TV adaptations (thanks BBC). As a teacher, I can see how the film medium can be used effectively to build interest in the plot and narrative structure of books that are lengthier or a little more difficult to relate to from a 21st Century child’s point of view.
Books, I love them. Books, I have plenty of. They taught me much and took my imagination to the greatest heights and deepest depths. I would not have been the person I am now if I had not immersed myself in literature and all its wisdom. Fiction can transport its readers to places which non-fiction cannot as we get to see what we would never normally see. It has made my experience of life richer in colour and beauty. Words became a tool to build castles, give fire to a dragon’s breath, or reveal to us the emotions of such raw characters that we feel we know what it is like to be in their skin. I know most people do not share my passion for those dusty things called books, especially if they do not have pretty pictures in them, but I would never deny that I love them in an insane way. I hope to impart a bit of that passion into the pupils I encounter along my way and that they will also see what books have to offer, as I did all those years ago. It’s a membership that you can or would never want to get out of. I’m a member of the Book Club!