When I was at primary school I caught whooping cough and had to spend weeks and weeks at home  in bed. Twice a week my mum went to the library  and brought me home lots of library books to read and I also read through just about every book in our house, appropriate or not. Dennis Wheatley horrors were huge favourites.
I was away from school for such a long time that everyone in my class sent me a letter as part of an English project and I wrote back. My letters were all about the characters in books I’d been reading.
Almost a whole half-term off school meant I needed help catching up in maths (I’d completely missed out on roman numerals) but the strange thing was I’d gone from near the bottom of the class in English to near the top. All that reading had paid off and once I’d caught the reading bug I didn’t stop. It’s one of the many reasons I love taking my dog Traffy into school to listen to children read. (The picture isn’t Traffy it’s Emma who went on to become a Helper Dog but used to have her own newspaper column when she was with me.)
The Read For My School annual competition launched at the end of January and runs until the 28th of March. It’s a great idea with lots of prizes to win and books to read online and off. It challenges anyone in year 3 to year 8 to read as many books as they can in 2 months – which is about the same amount of time it took to turn me from a non-reader into an avid one.
When did you learn to read or fall in love with books?
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Megan’s books about dogs in WW2 have been shortlisted for the East Sussex, Doncaster, Stockton and Shrewsbury Children’s Books of the Year.