Queering Goodreads and Other Adolescent Adventures
Hi, my name is Smita.
I want to tell you a little about why reading and books are important to me, and why they were particularly important to my adolescence. I’ve always had books around me while growing up. My dad loves reading and his books would be all over the house, and this was before I could even read.
When I started learning to read in LKG, I would pick up the books and riffle through them. My parents didn’t believe in saying things like certain books weren’t meant for kids. They believed that if you could read it and understand, it was well and good and you could go ahead.
Books are expensive in UAE, though, because they are all imported. When I was a little kid, we had a neighbour who was a teacher so she had a lot of kids' books and she gave them away to us so we could read....