We went to Ibiza, and I was on Ritalin, and, for a kid who couldn't concentrate, I read a 200-page book on King Arthur, and my mum just hated it. She said it just wasn't me.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I did have a problem concentrating on anything for more than 10 seconds. I was one of the first kids in the U.K. to go on Ritalin, and my mum hated it, and I hated it.
My mother had to stop me reading to make me go and get some fresh air. I used to get so annoyed. She actually had to sit on my book because, otherwise, I would find it.
I loved 'Harry Potter' growing up. I'm dyslexic and a slow reader, but I could get through the thick ones in days!
I was a terrible reader as a kid. I mean terrible. Super slow and very unfocused. It took me forever to read a book, and I remember being well into high school and still needing my mom to sit down and read aloud to me so I could pass my English tests and such.
I was not good in school. I could never read very fast or very well. I got tested for learning disabilities, for dyslexia. Then I got put on Ritalin and Dexedrine. I took those starting in the eighth grade. As soon as they pumped that drug into me, it would focus me right in.
I was an obsessive fantasy reader from the time I could read at all.
I read 'the Hobbit' at the age when you're supposed to read it. I didn't read 'The Lord Of The Rings.' My father, who was an English teacher, advised me that once I had read 'the Hobbit,' that would be enough. I could then move on to Dostoyevsky.
I didn't really like reading much before I did 'The Golden Compass'. But then my teacher told me to read it. And I thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to read a whole book by myself!' It's not that I couldn't read, it's just that I didn't really like books very much. But the book that she lent me I really enjoyed.
For the best part of my childhood I visited the local library three or four times a week, hunching in the stacks on a foam rubber stool and devouring children's fiction, classics, salacious thrillers, horror and sci-fi, books about cinema and origami and natural history, to the point where my parents encouraged me to read a little less.
I didn't care for most of the books I was being asked to read in school. I started reading like crazy right after high school when I got a job in a mental hospital. I was working my way through college, and I did a lot of night shifts, and there was nothing to do. So I read like crazy, serious stuff, all the classics.
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