Last week while I was at work at an after school program, I noticed a small blonde girl sitting alone in the corner of the room, totally immersed in a massive Harry Potter book that looked as if it could weigh as much as she did. I watched as she giggled to herself, eagerly turning page after page, and I couldn't help but smile.
A huge fan of the Harry Potter series myself, I had to ask her what part she was reading, as it seemed to be extremely entertaining to her. She smiled and read aloud to me the part in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" when Snape confronts Harry about the Marauder's Map, and Harry delivers the message that the map requests Snape keep his "abnormally large nose out of other people's business". We then had a lengthy conversation about various characters and funny moments throughout the books. It wasn't a conversation between an adult and a child; it was simply a fun chat between two die-hard Harry Potter fans.
It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I was the small blonde girl in the corner, balancing a massive book between her hands. I devoured more books than I can count over the course of my childhood, and often find myself in the bookstore flipping through numerous books while constantly asking myself, "have I read this? This seems too familiar." I was picked on more than one occasion for walking home with my face shoved between the pages of these books. Honestly, I just couldn't wait to get home to read what happened next.
Having suffered from severe social anxiety for most of my life, it has never been easy - in fact, it's practically impossible - for me to have conversations with people I am not familiar with. Books, however, have always provided me exactly the kind of comfort and protection I need when I find myself in those terrifying social situations. In the waiting room at the dentist's office, in the school cafeteria, and even at parties, I was always able to depend on books to hide my face and to make the chaos around me fall away for a little while.
But books have done far more than protect me from my anxieties; they have also helped me to build connections. There have been some occasions when a complete stranger has come up to me to discuss the book that I'm reading, and that commonality between us makes me feel at ease; the social anxiety dissipates and my inner bookworm takes over.
I can confidently say that books have shaped my life, and molded me into the person I am at this very moment. Books are the reason I'm writing this article; they have planted a seed in my heart that grew into my desire to devote my time to writing creatively in the hopes that maybe someday, a child will be reading my words and giggling to themselves.
