Mother's Memorable Read

I have never known that my mother enjoyed reading English books. In the past, she was brought up in an almost completely Chinese Environment. Most of her childhood was spent under chinese exposure, so it was really unexpected that she did have a favourite english book.

Okay, now on to the book itself. It's title is: The Secret Island by Enid Blyton. Actually, she cannot really recall what the story was really about, but that was the first answer she gave me when I asked her the question. Apart from that book, she has also read classics like Gulliver's Travels, Aesop's Fables, Treasure Island and the like.

From her response, I can only conclude that she really enjoyed reading when she was young, and this includes a wide spectre of books from various genres. Hitherto, I have finally found out her real passion to books when she was young.

Perhaps this was my mother's first response simply because of the title, which could have caught her eye both when she was young, and emerged from her memory when she was answering my question. My mother enjoys exploring (even now, she loves to go overseas because she likes adventures) and maybe the title of the story suggests mystery and adventure.

On the other hand, it could also be because of this book that she began to enjoy adventures. Whichever it was, I suppose my mother remembered this read after so many years also because she found it meaningful. I have read Enid Blyton's stories when I was a pre-schooler, and I am fairly aware that Enid Blyton can create stories that seem so vivid. This is why my mother can still recollect these memories after so long.

However, she told me that it was also because she wanted to improve on her English (Don't forget: Chinese environment) and Enid Blyton's books were considerably thicker and her stories are longer; my grandfather bought many other series of such books for my uncles and my mother so as to raise their standards of English.

I believe that this book would stay in my mother's memories for a long time to come, and in the meantime, I guess she has many other more books in mind;

That would be another story.

(Image courtesy of: istockphoto)