How I became a Bookaholic
by C.J. Daugherty
I was obsessed with reading as a child. I was shy and found my own life unsatisfactory so I sought a new one in the pages of books.
I can remember going to the library with my mother who (foolishly) told me to “…pick as many books as you like.” When I walked up to her 30 minutes later holding a stack that reached to my nose, she and the librarian burst out laughing.
After that I was given a book limit.
Still, when I was 12 I won an award for “Most library books read in a school year”. I’d read 150. These included everything from Don Quixote to a Man for All Seasons to books on SELF DEFENCE and a battered 1950s edition of Connie Francis’ Beauty Secrets.
What that last one was doing there, I have no idea, but I’ve splashed my face five times with cold water in the morning ever since.
I preferred old books even then – I liked the beautiful colours, the yellowing paper. How they felt in my hands. The way they smelled.
Neither of my parents read much, and at times they worried about me; my nose was always buried in a book and I didn’t have a lot of friends. They went so far as to take books away from me and order me to go outside and play. “Make friends,” they’d implore. “Be a normal child.”
My grandmother was a reader, though. My co-conspirator. She gave me all her old books and books my aunts and uncles had read.
So I immersed myself in the Cherry Ames series, by Helen Wells. Written in the 1940s it tells the story of about a young American girl who joins the Army during World War II and becomes a flight nurse.
Then there was Polyanna, a book written in 1913 about a little girl who stays positive even when she loses everything. I’ve wondered ever since what calf’s foot jelly is. I still don’t know and I’m not sure I want to.
I adored The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew – a turn of the century series about a family living in “little brown house” who struggle to survive but always love each other. Their whole world changes when they are taken in by a wealthy benefactor.
I have no idea what other children my age were reading at the time. Because I was reading my grandmother’s books.
And I still have that award from the library on my wall.
Night school book two.
In the last year, Allie's survived three arrests, two breakups and one family breakdown. The only bright point has been her new life at Cimmeria Academy. It's the one place she's felt she belongs. And the fact that it's brought the dreamy Carter West into her life hasn't hurt...But far from being a safe haven, the cloistered walls of Cimmeria are proving more dangerous than Allie could've imagined. The students, and faculty, are under threat and Allie's family - from her mysterious grandma to her runaway brother - are at the centre of the storm. Allie is going to have to choose between protecting her family and trusting her friends. But secrets have a way of ripping even the strongest relationships apart...
Author bioC.J. Daugherty was 22 when she saw her first dead body. Although she’s now left the world of crime reporting she has never lost her fascination with what it is that drives some people to do awful things as well as the kind of people who will try to stop them. The Night School series is the product of that fascination. Born in the USA, C.J. Daugherty has lived in the UK so long she considers herself British, even getting married to her English film producer husband at Anne Boleyn’s favourite castle in Kent, Hever Castle.
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