hooper kay2

 

 

“Might want to encourage Kay to read over the summer, as she’s shown little interest in that so far.”

 

If it hadn’t been for my second-grade teacher, I might never have become a novelist. More importantly, I might never have discovered the utter joy of reading. You see, at the end of that year, she noted on my report card that my parents “might want to encourage Kay to read over the summer, as she’s shown little interest in that so far.”

Looking back, I can’t imagine having shown little interest in reading, but in any case, my mother dutifully took me to the library that summer. And a very wise librarian asked me a simple question: What do you like?

Well, I was a little girl. I loved horses. The librarian immediately took me to the children’s section and pointed out the stories about horses. Black Beauty. The Black Stallion. Misty of Chincoteague.

Black Beauty broke my heartand opened my eyes to the often careless cruelty dealt out by humans to animals. The Black Stallion made me want to ride race horses. Misty just enthralled me.

sewell blackbeautySo I was hooked. I read every horse book on the shelves that summer. And when I was done, I asked the librarian what to read next. She and I together would huddle at the shelves, considering this and that novel. Novels about animals, novels about intrepid young ladies (Hello Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew!), novels about adventure.

When I returned to school that fall, I was reading nearly three grades higher than I had at the beginning of the summer, and a hunger for reading had been awakened in me. I went to the school library, and began working my way through any books that looked interesting. All kinds of books.

Admittedly, when I hit my preteens, there were a lot of romance novels, both new and classic. And somewhere along the way, I discovered a book by Georgette Heyer. Even with all my reading, I had never before been transported to another time and place, so different from the here and now, and that probably changed everything for me. Heyer’s wonderful novels showed me that books could do more than enthrall and entertain, they could transport.

I could visit other countries, other times, other worlds. Years later, as a novelist myself, I learned that I could also build worlds of my own, which was wonderful and amazing to me. And gave me a career.

heyer georgetteBut it all started with books about horses (I still love them), and the romances and mysteries of Georgette Heyer. Horses taught me to love reading; Georgette Heyer taught me how to lose myself in a story and be transported to worlds very unlike my own.

And a final word about that summer librarian, whose last words to me were, “Try everything, because you never know what you’ll enjoy unless you open the book and start reading.”

How right she was.

Kay Hooper is the New York Times selling author of the Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series as well as many other bestselling, award-winning books. She is also a passionate animal rights advocate, and works to network shelter dogs and cats as well as working with others to get a new animal shelter built in her area. Kay lives in North Carolina with her dogs and cats.

 

This “Writers on Reading” essay was originally published in At the Scene” eNews April 2015 as a first-look exclusive to our enewsletter subscribers. For more special content available first to our enewsletter subscribers, sign up here.

kay-hooper-on-horses-and-heyer
4866