My earliest reading memory
Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Together, in the back of my parents’ car at the age of four or five. We had just come from a bookstore and were setting off on a long drive, possibly down to the Florida Keys from Miami.
My favourite book growing up
It might have been Goblins in the Castle by Bruce Coville because I loved the idea of heading off toward adventure through hidden passageways. Retrospectively, I like that it provides witty criticism of xenophobia and our prison systems. I also loved There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom by Louis Sachar, which I would have read when I was eight or nine. Bradley gains a reputation for being a troublemaker, and tries to improve his behaviour, but finds it’s an uphill battle. It is one of the first books I can remember reading that features a bit of an antihero; a protagonist with a faulty moral compass, but who is still worthy of our empathy.
