World Book Day
Our household was a hive of activity this morning, owing to the arrival of 'World Book Day'. Both my other half, and our eldest daughter work in schools – respectively a school secretary at an infant school, and a childcare assistant at a pre-school.
I had to look twice this morning when an amazingly accurate re-creation of Mary Poppins (the Julie Andrews version) arrived in the kitchen, complete with flowers in her hat, shawl on her shoulders, and shoes with heels. A few minutes later a rather charming female version of 'Where's Wally' (or 'Waldo', depending on where you live) arrived in the kitchen – complete with trademark woolly hat.
I'm wondering how many children will arrive at school this morning having fallen victim to competition among their parents – dressed from head to toe in outrageously expensive off-the-shelf movie character costumes, rather than anything to do with a book the children might like.
I'm not going to go off on one. I promise. Today is supposed to be a happy day about the books that made us who we are – not a ranty day about competitive parents.
So – it begs the question – can you name a book that has had a lasting impact on you – that has changed you ?
I'm going to come out of left field, and pick a book by Whitley Strieber that I picked up from a bargain book store years ago. It's called 'Communion', and mixes fact and fiction together to recount one of the many stories that later became part of the 'abduction' phenomenon. I read it as an impressionable early-twenty-something, and remember sitting up all night reading – one of the few times I have done so. It opened my mind to the possibility that there might be more than just 'this' – and that our understanding of the world around us might be wrong, but that there's not necessarily anything wrong with that either.