Alan Cumyn - Hooked by a book

In celebration of Raise-a-Reader Day, the Citizen invited a dozen celebrated authors to name the titles that made them lifelong readers by james macgowan (Photo: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen)

Alan Cumyn

Author of the Owen Skye books for kids -- The Secret Life of Owen Skye, After Sylvia and Dear Sylvia

Well, lots of books blew my socks off in the early days, but one that has stayed with me is Kenneth Grahame's brilliant The Wind in the Willows. When I first read it, at a tender age, I was completely engrossed in Mr. Toad's wonderfully improbable addiction to motorcars.

Now when I read it, I am slack-jawed with delight at Grahame's descriptions, as when Mole trots beside the river "as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea."


Hooked by a book Citizen Special Published: Wednesday, September 24, 2008