Last year during summer vacation, I was very bored. It is because all I did was to watch TV. I don’t like movies and dramas because they are full of pathetic stories and songs, so I mostly watched cartoons.

But when I didn’t find any good cartoon, because there were just too many cartoons with aggressive characters and scary aliens, I quit watching them and found it better to stay in my room most of the times.

So half the summer vacation was the worst in my life mostly because I had nothing interesting to pass my time with; for instance, we don’t have a computer so I could not play games or surf the internet and the weather was too hot to play outside or enjoy cycling.

After much thought, I finally decided to give reading a try. Apart from reading weekly magazines and my course books, I started reading children novels by famous authors. I remember the first book was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl which my mom bought for me. And the moment I started reading, it caught my interest maybe because I am a chocolate lover myself! I really enjoyed the company of Charlie and Mr Willy Wonka, the owner of that gigantic and adventurous chocolate factory and astonishingly, I finished the book the following day!

Seeing my interest, my mom’s happiness knew no bounds as being an avid reader herself, she always wanted me to seek pleasure in books.

After that, my mom bought me various other books by Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton. Gradually, I fell in love with books and enjoyed reading them. Many a times, I re-read some of them; the unique fragrance in each book had a soothing effect on me and now I have my own treasure of books, both fiction and non-fiction.

Books helped me in improving my lingual skills. They helped me utilise my imagination, thus, I started creating my own interesting stories! Not only mom, but my teachers also encouraged me and I got good marks in story and essay writing competitions!

Books are not only a source of everlasting pleasure and happiness, but are also a great source of knowledge as well as adventure. Now I look forward to holidays and vacations so that I can indulge in this newfound love of reading as much as I want. My books safeguard me from the evil called boredom!