As a child I was a voracious reader. I was on chapter books by about five or six and I was hooked. I was never without a book – I belonged to all the libraries (although I was terrible at returning my books) and I struck up relationships with bookshop owners along the Northern Beaches of Sydney. I had my own chair at the second hand book shop I went to every day after school from the ages of eight to 10 – I was allowed to read in the store and they always swapped my books for me. On average I would read one book every afternoon, sometimes two.
