Introduction to Children's Literature

Reading has always been a love of mine from very early on.  I remember sneaking away from the noise and commotion and sitting down with a book in a secluded space.  It didn't have to be a very glamorous place, but just one where I was free to visualize, dream and be transported to new places with new people.  Growing up in a bustling metropolis like Madras in Southern India afforded few such quiet spaces.  One of my early haunts was to sit in our shady backyard where I was least likely to be disturbed.  My seat was the cool concrete block below which was the water that ran to the hand pump.  All around me tropical flowers exuded their spicy-sweet fragrance and the sounds of the running water and the birds gave me the quiet that I needed to be truly immersed in the story.  In shady seclusion I could be whomever I needed to be to fit the current novel that I was reading.