Library
I spent long recesses at the library. Upgraded from the elementary school, the junior high school library truly excited me. The librarian was my second cousin’s mother, who recommended me what to read.
My reading habit became my passion since my aunt, who married my most well-read uncle, bought me a copy of Momo by Michael Ende when I was nine. Both my aunt and my mother provided me the books. I read Never Ending Story, Alice in Wonderland, Through The Looking Glass, The Secret Garden, and a series of Mary Poppins while in elementary school. From the library, I picked up biographies of inventors and scientists.
In junior high school, my second cousin’s mother chose for me The Good Earth Trilogy, Treasure Island, and some Japanese literature, including Sabu by Shugoro Yamamoto and Shiokari Pass by Ayako Miura. I also finished the whole series of Anne of Green Gables and moved on to First Love, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Beneath The Wheel, Strait Is The Gate, and Crime and Punishment.
In the restraints of the school curriculum and girls’ rules, I turned to books for freedom.