In Search of James and the White Rabbit

As a child I escaped to adventures on a giant peach. I trailed an elusive rabbit through fields of talking flowers and sought guidance from the wise wizard, Gandalf. For a kid who moved between cities and had a difficult time making friends, books were sanctuaries. Without great storytellers igniting a sense of wonder and comfort, my teen years would have been grim.

In college, I enrolled in a business degree program because it seemed sensible. Statistics, accounting, and human resource courses amassed to a Master of Business Administration degree. I was too busy for fiction, so I stopped reading and the books that filled my small library collected dust.

I worked in operations management, became a wife and mother, and didn’t touch a novel. Between my family, a job, and a house, personal time didn’t exist, but reading to my daughter was wonderful and it helped her development.  Although she gummed the corners of her first picture books, it wasn’t long before she was listening to Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, and Roald Dahl. By the age of seven, she read and loved Lewis Carrol, Louis Sachar, and Beverley Cleary.

It thrilled me to see her excited to read stories that enchanted me as a child, but suddenly (and desperately), I needed to read, too. I wanted that for myself, something separate from daily errands and obligations. I craved the success of an unlikely hero, my nerves twitched from a villain’s pursuit and the bitter relief for the plot twist I didn’t expect. On my 35^th birthday, I decided to read one book each week for six months.

I cancelled the cable. We have a television for family movie nights, but the channel surfing stopped.  I read at the same time as my daughter. For an hour each night, we snuggled together under a downy quilt and read our books side-by-side. She was curious about what I read, and we discussed the characters in our stories. After her bedtime, I read for another hour.

Here are the 24 books I read, one book per week for six months:

1. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
2. What Alice Forgot by Liana Moriarty
3. The Shadow of the Wind by Ruiz Zafron
4.  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Duerr
5. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
6. End of Days by Susan Ee
7. Defending Jacob by William Landlay
8. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
9. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
10. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
11. The Autistic Brain by Temple Graindin
12. The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
13. The King: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward
14. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
15. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
16. The Martian by Andy Weir
17. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
18. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simision
19. Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
20. Tinkers by Paul Harding
21. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
22. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
23. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
24. The Giver by Lois Lowry

Life is busy and demanding, and reading is a luxury sometimes taken for granted. I learn from gifted writers. Their ideas transport me to locations I cannot visit and periods of time long-since passed. They introduce me to characters that terrify, inspire, and entertain. They help me know myself better, and I am grateful to settle into their pages each night.

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 In Search of James and the White Rabbit was written by Candice Williams exclusively for BonBon Break Media, LLC.

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