When I was 11, I lived in a small town called Tarcutta, population 300.

There was a general store, a service station, a post office, a club, a club, a hardware store and a craft hub. And that was pretty much it.

So, books were a big part of my life. Through them, I could escape to fantastic, magical worlds; solve mysteries; laugh and cry.

We didn’t have a library, so once a fortnight I would await the arrival of the semi trailer that housed the region’s Mobile Library…I could hardly wait to step inside and see the adventures that awaited me.

But the problem with a fortnightly service was that my voracious appetite for reading often meant I’d devoured all my books before I could borrow more. On one such occasion, I was flopping around the house, sighing dramatically about how bored I was, as only an 11 year old can, when my mother said “fine…read this” (NB: I am told I was a pretty mature kid).

What she handed me was one of the books that changed my life. It was Stephen King’s ‘Cujo‘ – a horror story about a rabid St Bernard – and I read the whole thing in eight hours’ straight.

I did nothing else that day.  I simply read and read and read and when I finished I knew I had found my genre…while my classmates were eating up the latest Sweet Dreams romance, I was convincing Mum to let me read Christine or Carrie.

It was King who taught me how powerful and emotive the written word could be and it was his work that influenced much of the writing of my high school and university days.

But before the master of contemporary horror, there was Enid Blyton. The Enchanted Wood series; The Secret Seven; and all the other amazing titles this prolific author produced.

I was captivated by the adventures of the magical folk of The Faraway Tree; I wanted to visit The Land of Take-What-You-Want and The Land of Goodies; I could almost taste the Toffee Shocks and Pop Biscuits. She wove a delightful other world, which I escaped to often…

My original hardbacks are sitting patiently on the shelf in Miss 6’s room, just waiting for her to discover the fabulous worlds within…and I can’t wait to see another generation transformed by  Blyton’s writings.

To me, her Faraway Tree series is the Harry Potter of my generation…the wonder of the lands at the top of the tree only equalled by JK Rowling’s Hogwarts (which, I am delighted to report, my eldest daughter is obsessed with).

We recently took her to the Harry Potter exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, and it was so special to see her eyes widen at the displays of Exploding Bonbons and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans; to see the enthusiasm with which she unpotted the Baby Mandrakes; and to hear her sighs of wonder when we walked slowly through the mist of Platform 9 3/4.

We were truly transported to another world. And the talent for taking people out of their everyday existence is something that King, Blyton and Rowling have in spades…the ability to capture imagination and bring people together with the worlds they have created through words alone.

Incredible.

Tonight, we will be discussing this very topic at the Second Tuesday Night Book Club – but let’s start the conversation now!

What are the books or authors that have had an impact on you? That have perhaps changed the way you looked at the world?