Member-only story
Believing in the Possibilities
Over a weekend decades ago I came to believe in magic. It happened when I fell in love with a…
Over a weekend decades ago I came to believe in magic. It happened when I fell in love with a book, and with reading and the experience would shape my thinking and turn me into the person I am today.
Every time I decide to gift a copy of this book to someone special in my life, I spend the weekend before rereading it from cover to cover. The title is Carbonel and it was written the year I was born by Barbara Sleigh. She was a British author and when the children’s librarian recommended it to me during one of my regular Saturday visits it did not seem to be something I would be interested in reading. But I trusted Mrs. Keene implicitly and checked out the book before I even opened it.
I will preface this story by saying that I was in the fourth grade at the time, and had just that week encountered my first bully at school. It was a girl in my class who had come to our school as a new student after the Christmas break. Sue was loud and rude and unlike anyone I had met up until that time. She would ultimately be asked to leave our school after cursing at one of the teachers, but that would be several months after she arrived.
Bullies rule by intimidation. They poke fun at others as a way to take the spotlight off their own…
