Hello Everyone.

I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to write to you all. My name is Nikki and I run a small shop in Baza called Baza Books.

For as long as I can remember I have been a book lover. My greatest treat as a small child was being a member of our local library. I was given a ticket and was able to take 5 books home for the week. The hardest thing was only choosing 5. It was difficult then and is impossible now. In the library my Mum or Dad were waiting and needing me to hurry up as they had other jobs to do. I would always have some Enid Blyton, also Mary Naughton and Louisa May Alcott, but I yearned for the ones I couldn’t take home.

One of my dreams was to be accidentally locked in over night. Then I could just sit and read everything.

My Grandmother was a great reader. I loved to visit her and be allowed to go through her bookcase.

She loved detective stories; Agatha Christie, Carter Dickson and John Creasey were the favourites. As a result they became my favourites too. I have never felt that any book is too young or too old for a person.

Between my Library Books, Murder Mysteries from Grandma, and whenever I could get my hands on it, my Dad’s newspaper I probably read things that I didn’t fully understand but they all added up to my knowledge now.

Looking back I haven’t changed very much at all. Although I have my favourites I believe that any book is better than no book and I make it a habit to read authors I have not heard of.

Books can be the key to open other worlds and to understand other lives, books can educate, entertain and sometimes annoy.

As I l think back to books that made me happy, or that have stayed in my mind, I immediately think of Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, the Water Babies by Charles Kingsley and Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

I have always viewed books as friends, some I love and want to keep for ever. Some are okay, I like bits of them so I can forget the parts I don’t like. Other books I just don’t understand, but sometimes those can be the best, just like a person you have only just met, you have to take the time to get to know them.

Perhaps you meet with them a few times and you share a joke or a game. Sometime later you meet them again and things are better, you make each other laugh, perhaps you have a conversation that you both enjoy and understand, and before you know it you have a new friend.

Next time I’ll introduce you to some more of my friends.

                                            Nikki

 

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