Prescription: A Book A Day

When life gets a little wobbly for me, when I look around me and there's this rather large mote of emotion or troubles or stress I begin to build myself a bridge. It takes time, care and patience; each book a brick that has to be selected carefully. Sometimes rain will lash down and threaten to flood my little island, but as yet the banks have held. With each book, I get closer to the mainland, and I get more determined to get there, a smile growing on my face. The books slot together perfectly, each adding a stitch to my patches until I become reasonably fully formed again. (No one ever is fully formed though, don't be silly!)

Recently books that I wouldn't have dreamed of approaching have helped me more than I could've imagined. As cathartic as book shopping is, the real joy comes when you sit and fall into another world and then hit a passage or a feeling or a thought that reveals the sun to you. Out from a cloud, comes this clarity. And it's wonderful.

Reading is honestly the best medicine I have; I learn, I grow and I heal. Plus, the stories I read make me smile, they make me laugh and cry and introduce me to worlds that I could never have imagined. When I read I am escaping, but by reading I am found.

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"Teens don't read"

Earlier today Maureen Johnson pointed out that the view of "teens don't read" in the UK is deeply entrenched (which is a word that I now love and had never heard before). As a teenager in the UK, the stigma around reading seems to be - to me - it's "uncool", it's "geeky", there "aren't any good books out there". I think the fact that a lot of teenagers in British schools are exposed to older literature or, perhaps, not that popular literature in lessons and forced into over-analysing and spending countless hours on 'what the author meant'. A point that was raised in this twitter discussion was that people didn't want to be seen reading, or didn't want to be seen reading certain books. It's made me realise that I never ever ever see people reading in the older years in my school ( ever ). Perhaps the odd year 7 (12 year old) or year 8 (13 year old) will read, but - from experience - they will probably be

To A Baby

Dear Baby in a cafe, You are growing up in an incredible age. The age of the unknown. We are balancing on a thin line that could topple either way and the future, Baby, is unknown. For the moments that our eyes meet I see a world in your mind. The cogs whirring and your mind constantly processing everything. You see so much and understand so little; but that is changing. It is funny to think of all the new things you're currently learning about. Learning to eat, to drink, to speak, to listen and learn. The world which you observe, Baby, is wonderful. I cannot convey to you how incredibly grand it is because it simply is impossible to put it into words. It is wonderful - completely - but it is also full of terrible destruction. It's like a coin; there are two sides to it. I tend to pick the glass-half-full attitude, because I believe it will ultimately be okay. There are horrible things that happen in this world, Baby, and this world is heading down an unknown path. However

On Family

I think everyone has qualms with their families. There's things we like and, naturally, don't like about the people we spend our time with. We have disagreements and upsets and we are very likely to all have different views on how things should be done but all in all we've kind of been put together because of genes so sometimes have to face the music. After spending time away from family to study at university I've come to appreciate my family more. Not only this but I also see them as people with individual thoughts and ideals... kind of like the moment you realise that your teacher is, holy moly, a person with a life outside of school . (I know, crazy right?) Through these realisations full of gratitude, and yes slightly bitter reality I have been able to come to terms (well more so than before) with the fact that disagreements happen. People don't see eye to eye. Sometimes people will never understand how your mind works or how other people work. That's j

Practically Alice

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