Childrens’ books almost made me stop reading.

It’s true.

Them and the public school system.

When I was in first grade (age 6), the teacher announced we were going to learn to read that year in school. I put my hand in the air.

“I already know how to read,” I told her. I did. I had learned at the private school I had attended until then.

“We’ll talk about that later,” my teacher told me.

What she meant was, “Shut up and don’t make waves. My lesson plan doesn’t include you, smart-ass, and I don’t have the time, energy, or concern about you to re-write it.” I know, because that was all she ever said on the subject. “We’ll talk about it later.” After a few times, I quit asking her about my advanced reading skills. And what she did about it was ignore me. She held me back to the other kids’ level so she wouldn’t have to do anything special with me.

So at the weary old age of six and a half, I decided that reading was a total crock. That bullshit people fed you about how learning to read could open doors? Ha! Yeah, you could tell if a door opened in or out by reading the “Push” or “Pull” sign on it. The only books I saw around me were textbooks and easy readers. Who the hell wants to read those unless someone’s forcing you to?

So for Christmas that year, my mom got me the Chronicles of Narnia, the box set.

“Whatever,” I thought, and they sat on a shelf in my bedroom, untouched.

Sometime over the summer, I started whining to Mom that I was bored. She asked if I had started reading those shiny new books she had given me yet? No, I replied. I had peeked inside them, saw chapters and illustrations of children and assumed it was a textbook. Ugh. No way.

Mom started telling me about a little girl named Lucy, who goes to stay in a big mansion with her brothers and sister, and finds a magic warddrobe that holds an entire other country. Well, a whole world, really, where animals talk and all kinds of magical creatures are running around doing cool things. But the country is held in eternal winter by an evil witch, and only a human can break her spell. The witch had killed or chased away all the humans, all but Lucy, who the witch doesn’t know about.

“And then what happened?” I asked breathlessly.

“Why don’t you read the books and find out?” Mom said, a little impatiently.

I was confused. “Wait, you weren’t just making all that up? That’s what’s in those books you gave me?”

“Well, yeah,” Mom said. “You don’t think I’d give you stupid books, do you?”

I didn’t bother to tell her that grown-ups did stupid things all the time, or that things I thought no grown-up should do were things all of them did. They seemed to think us little kids were suckers.

Instead, I jumped up and ran to my room. The first book still looked like a text book when I opened it, but I gave it a try.

Sure enough, this amazing, magical world jumped out of the pages at me, dragging me along with Lucy as she tried to convince her siblings about the magic country. Why hadn’t anyone told me about this before???

I was seven by then. I had learned to read when I was five. I could have been reading this sort of thing for two whole years by then! If someone would have told me.

Next came Harriet the Spy. The Bobbsey Twins. Heidi. Lassie. Alice in Wonderland. Charlotte’s Web. The Indian in the Cupboard. Bunnicula. 101 Dalmations. Anything anyone could put in my hands. I started getting in trouble for staying up after bedtime reading. Getting in trouble for having a novel open inside my textbook at school. Crap, having a novel open on my lap while I was supposed to be paying attention.

By the time I was ten, these book were getting old. They sounded childish. I had a hard time relating to the characters.

Mom handed me a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I was off and running again.

This is why I can’t write kids’ fiction. I tried once, and wrote for the seven-year-old I had been. I tried to dial it back a little, make my main character seem a little stupid for a seven-year-old, because when I was seven, I thought other seven-year-olds were stupid. I was told my character seemed like he was twelve. I went back, re-read it, and simply could not see how anyone thought that. I scrapped the book and went back to adult fiction.

It’s not my fault I was reading at a college level in third grade.

Blame my mom.