Thursday Thoughts

Portals to a Magical World – Writing 101 Day 9

To my dear darling grandchildren,

I wanted to tell you all about the magical world that is hidden away inside every bookshop, especially second-hand bookshops – those that sell books that other people have read before.  I know that you may never have seen a bookshop, especially as ereaders are so popular now.  You may even have an ereader of your own, but I think you should know something about bookshops in case you should ever come across one.

Below is a picture of a bookshop.  Can you see the different coloured objects in the window of the shop?  These are books – real books.    Let me tell you what to expect when you open the door of a bookshop, especially a second-hand bookshop and walk inside.   First you will be surrounded by a very strange smell – it’s very hard to describe, but you will know it at once.   It’s a very comforting smell, not at all nasty, and is very friendly.  This smell is caused by the magic which is emanating from all the books which live in the shop.  The smell is much stronger in a second-hand bookshop because of all the many thousands of books which have lived in the shop at different times.

Once you have got used to the smell, and start to look around, you might hear some of the books speaking to you.  Don’t be frightened by this, it is only the books trying to get to know you.  If this doesn’t happen then don’t worry.  Books have more than one way to speak to you.  Sometimes you will pick up a book and the feel of it will make you open it.  Sometimes you will head towards a book because its cover has spoken to you (covers can be very magical), and sometimes a you will find that a book has just appeared in your hand and you’re reading the first page.  The first words in every book are the most magical because these are the ones that will catch you in their spell (if the cover didn’t get you first).  Again, please don’t worry about this, a book won’t speak to you at all if it isn’t right for you.

If the book is right though, a magical world will open up to you and you’ll get to visit wonderful, magical places which will keep you spellbound for hours.  There will also be pictures in the books which speak to you.  These are special pictures to help you understand the magical world you have been invited to visit.  They’re magical because you might see one thing in the picture and a friend might see another.  You will both be right because the picture is there for you – it is part of the magic of the book. Every single book contains a different magical world so I would urge you to visit as many as you can while you are young enough to be given full access to this very special magic.  If you visit lots of magical worlds then, when you’re an adult, you will still be able to visit new ones.  If you don’t visit enough when you are young though, the magic stops talking to you.

If you never get to see a real bookshop Ebooks do contain magical words though they’re not as powerful as real books, but I’m sure, if you read lots of ebooks you will still be able to visit the magical worlds kept hidden in the words.

I hope you have lots and lots of magical adventures

All my love

Grandma