World Changing Books

A massive thank you to Erika at Moonlight Book Reviews. Erika juggles passions, commitments, and challenges with a smile 🙂 She also hosted my recent guest post about world changing books (and is one of the first bloggers to review Total Blueprint for World Domination!) Thanks Erika!

As readers, we walk into books with an open heart. We trust that the writer will take care of us, we let them carry us away. And whether we’re entertained, inspired, or totally creeped out, we are often changed by what we read.

I was eight years old, devouring as many books as the librarian would let me check out. I loved books, but I didn’t understand how powerful and magical they could be. Then my Aunty sent me a book that would change my world. The book was thick, heavy, huge. I clutched it excitedly (a real grown-up book!) curled in a blanket, and flipped to page one.

I’d never seen anything like it. The first words were typed backwards, and the story’s text alternated from red to green. As I read, swirling images wrapped me up. I dissolved into the  movie all around me. The Neverending Story was one of the first books that showed me a secret world that was all my own, a place that didn’t stop when I closed the covers. With a main character who was shy in one world and a hero in another, the book gave me the freedom to have faith in a future that I couldn’t see yet.

Fiction or non-fiction, long or short, books can change your world. Green Eggs and Ham? Be open to new experiences. Before I Fall? Be kind. I know my life is changed when I read books, and as a writer I hope to do that for other people.

Is there a book that changed your life? Carved a crack in your world?