Christabelle Grant Author

When I was a kid, I was surrounded by books.

Books in my bedroom, books down the hallways and books in my hands.

Every good thing- it came from a book.

When I was four years old, my sister went to school and it was there that she learned how to read. It was there that she started bringing books home, always tucked away in her fluro book bag with the velcro at the top.

One thing I always wanted to be, was my sister.

As my sister went to school each day, my brother and I spent a lot of our days with Mum, doing baking on the kitchen bench, playing in the sprinklers in the garden, and when we were lucky- which was once per fortnight, we would get to go with mum to the supermarket and “help” her with the grocery shopping.

Now I feel it’s important to note that Mum’s definition of “help” and ours appeared to differ somewhat.

To keep things easy, mum would pop my brother and I into the shopping trolly and then place all the grocery items around us. It seemed like nothing much could go wrong. However, as the designated ring leader in any situation, I soon found that if I scratched the bottom of a bag of brown sugar quietly and discretely enough, that my brother and I could slowly eat our way through the deliciousness that is brown sugar. Time after time, mum would get to the checkout, load the items up, and then became exasperated that there was a hole in the brown sugar bag. She would race back up the aisle, and bring a fresh bag up to the conveyer belt- and away we would go again.

Fortnight after fortnight this happened, and to this very day, or should I say to this very blog, Mum had absolutely no idea that her two little bowl cut cherubs were the reason for the never ending holes in the brown sugar bag.

Now on one of these fateful trips to the supermarket, we somehow found ourselves in the VHS section- a section that was often swiftly passed, as the video tapes were a whooping $30- which was 30 weeks of pocket money at that stage.

I remember vividly seeing a VHS tape, with an ostrich and a dog dressed, naturally, in Safari gear, with the title “Working with Words.”

I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

Day after day, I begged Mum and Dad for this VHS tape, and day after day they said “We’ll see.”

I must have wore them down, for a few weeks later, I was presented with my first (and last) VHS tape in my small little hands.

“Working with Words” became a daily event, and soon my brother and I could chant it by heart.

The fact that a taking dog and ostrich had to move hell on earth to find their friend Schnoz Ali was mere semantics.

The point was that I was learning to read, and learning to read fast.

I went to school at six, with books flying through my hands both day and night.

I knew then, that I was going to be a published author one day

– and the day has finally come.