Discover Belinda's Writing Journey Blog

I was seven years old, a skinny, hungry girl. Frances, my 12-year-old neighbor, was more like a sister to me and I, a pesty child. She slapped a blue book in my hand and said, "read this." The book was Tom Sawyer. We had a tree-lined square with scraggly grass next to our house. If I kept moving away from the sun, there was always a tree to lean upon to shade me from the hot day. I had only read the elementary school readers. That summer I fell in love with novels. Tom, Huck, and Becky mesmerized me as they shared their world with me. I spent most of my summer reading Tom Sawyer. I would finish the book and then begin again until I had read Tom Sawyer ten times. I had no wish to become a writer then, but I wanted to read and read novels.