Sheila Maingi
Why do I read, you ask? Simple. I read because reading makes me a superhero with incredible powers. When I enter into the magical world of a book, an immediate strong and binding bond is created between the words and I. Well crafted words that thread into a story guaranteed to keep me intrigued to the end.
When I am reading, the rest of the universe is locked out of my thoughts leaving only my senses at work. The real world has no space in my life at that moment. I become a superhero; capable of wiping out the rest of the world and being the only one living and experiencing it. It’s a power of the mind that I can only exercise between the numbers of pages that make up a book. I am the silent observer, watching as everyone and everything as the story unfolds. The power to exist solely and to be the strongest at the time is what I get.
I read also because I get to travel all around the world traverse time and centuries and in the process meet wonderful writers. Oh! I have been to the 15th, the 17th and the 21st Century .
I met Shakespeare and saw the Cathedrals built by Robert Foletti. I have taken rides in the gondolas in Italy even witnessed Anna Karenin take her own life. I really did whisper to Snow White on where she could find the seven dwarfs. Oh and Achebe… How many times have I spoken to him about how stunned I have often been left after encountering his creative metaphors!
Books are my passport and my time machine: capable of taking me anywhere in the present, past and even future. He who has been to the past, present and future can only be smart and genius. Reading makes me smart and very cool.
