recommendations and reviews for the aspiring reader

recommendations and reviews for the aspiring reader

About The Belle

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a little girl.

She wasn’t anything extraordinary.

In fact, she was rather plain. She loved cakes and cookies a little too much and as a result, she was a bit fluffy. She had large, thick glasses and a few too many teeth in her small mouth.

She lived with her parents and her younger brother, in a tiny house on a tiny street in a tiny town. Her parents never got along and her brother was never interested in doing anything of substance.

The little girl didn’t have many friends.

You see, the tiny house on the tiny street in the tiny town made her world very tiny.

But she did have one thing. She had books.

In her books, the little girl could be a tall and beautiful Amazonian woman.

She could be the popular girl, with so many friends that she could barely keep count.

She could be a brave and witty heroine who always saved the day.

So the little girl wrapped herself into her books. She didn’t have very many, because her mother and father did not understand why anyone would want to spend their time reading books. So the little girl read the few books in her library over and over and over again and when the books began to fall apart, she used tape to put them back together again.

And in doing so, she made her tiny world very large.

The little girl grew into a bigger girl, in spirit and in size. She carried her books along with her, but sometimes felt shame at being so attached to them. Other children her age did not read books. They played games outside. They went to movies. They threw parties.

But secretly, the girl loved nothing more than to curl up in a quiet corner of her tiny room in her tiny house on her tiny street and read.

As the girl grew into a woman, a terrible ogre came into her life. He treated her poorly, but he did  give her two gifts, a beautiful girl and a handsome boy all her own.

The baby girl was like a perfect, soft rose. The baby boy was like a shining, sparkling candle.

The woman pulled the books she had carried with her from her tiny house on her tiny street in her tiny town out of boxes and read them aloud to her girl and boy.

Every evening, she would take her girl and boy on adventures to places like Hogwarts and Narnia and she would introduce them to people like the Baudelaire children and Charlie Bucket.

But the ogre did not understand her love of books, just as her parents had not, and so the woman’s library remained very small.

One day the woman decided she deserved better. She pulled bravery from her literary heroines, she pulled magic from her literary heroes, and she took her girl and boy and spirited them away from the evil ogre.

She became a hero all her own, but she was lonely. She had her books and they kept her great company but still, something was missing.

One day a dashing young prince invited the woman to a bookshop for a cup of coffee.  After much consideration, she obliged, and the meeting there turned into a relationship that would bring infinite happiness into the woman’s life for the very first time. She and her girl and her boy and the prince made a home and a family together that was full of laughter and smiles and constant happiness.

The prince had a box of books he had carried with him as well, and so his books joined the woman’s.

The prince gave the woman a precious gift of a little lion cub. She read to the lion cub every day and watched him grow strong and fierce.

And the prince gave the woman another gift.

He gave her the gift of an unending library, full of books of every kind. He encouraged her to buy any book she wanted to put into their library. They would sit in bed together at the end of a long day and read, side by side.

The prince took the books the woman had in boxes from her tiny house on the tiny street in the tiny town and he put them on bookshelves in the library they built together. He read the stories she read to her baby girl and baby boy and fell in love with them as much as the woman had.

The baby girl and the baby boy that the woman had grew up and  loved books as well. That made the woman feel such a happiness that she could not find words to describe it.

The feeling of sharing her books was so wonderful, so she decided to share them with everyone she knew.

And so she lived happily ever after.