No.27 “..some day you’ll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

The little girl was soon hooked on fairy tales fantasy books. Although the first one she read for herself was “The Lion The Witch, And The Wardrobe”, her favourite book was “The Magician’s Nephew”. It explained all the comings and goings between our world and Narnia. Reading it was like being let in on a secret.

It felt heartwarming and a privilege to be trusted with the secrets and details of how it all began. The little girl wanted to keep the knowledge safe and enjoyed reading the series of books even more as she felt a leap in her heart as each secret was mentioned.

In art classes at school, the little girl indulged in her love of fairy tales and fantasy books. She would draw and paint scenes from the books she loved. Encouraged by her art teacher, the little girl sometimes designed book covers for her favourites. Her art teacher would lend her books and showed her illustrations from Eastern European and Russian folk tales thinking that the little girl would like them. The art teacher was right. The rich but muted colours of the illustrations made her heart leap the first time she saw them.

She could only look at these pictures when she was in an art class.The little girl enjoyed drawing and painting in a similar way to these illustrations. She would study them and then tried to produce pictures with the same colour palettes and the black pen outlines. Years later the little girl would finally get to buy a book of her own with those Eastern European and Russian folk tales and the amazing illustrations. She treasured the book, not least of all because it reminded her of the art teacher and the encouragement she was given to indulge in a world of fantasy.