The World According to Books

 

 

There’s only one thing I like about this bedroom and that’s the window sill. It’s big and deep, and if you sit on it with a book and pull the curtains closed behind you, you can pretend you’re in a secret room and no one in the world can find you.

I’ve always been a bookworm, and I’ve been reading even more since we came here and stopped having drama classes and gymnastics and piano lessons all the time. There’s a bookcase in the hall which is full of Dad and Auntie Meg’s books from when they were kids. Really old hardback ones like Peter Pan and Swallows and Amazons and books about girl guides. I know most of them already, because I always read them when we come on visits.

I would like to live in a book. The world works better in books. If you go on picnics, the sun shines. If something gets stolen, you can solve the crime just by thinking hard. If someone’s dying, calling 999 will save them. It’s always obvious who’s good and who’s bad, and kids can camp out on moors or go to the North Pole or be world-famous detectives aged only ten.

Everything is simpler, in books. In books, lost fathers always come back from the dead and bullies always get beaten. The sun always shines on your birthday and things always work out right in the end.