Phing: one thing I read for pleasure

    Nearly all of my family's members enjoy reading. Even though our favourite books might be different, we usually spend our Sunday evening in each corner of the house reading something. Consequently, my reading journey has continued  since my first memory. I used to spend before-bedtime with my parents reading children's literature until I was twelve years old. It is a marvellous memory for me. After that, my journey jumped to kids' encyclopedias, fantasy novels, comics and textbooks for especially my last two years of high school. Nowadays, I am into non-fiction books. I have found that sometimes stories, in reality, are more interesting and exciting than sci-fi fiction. However, it is not the best kind of text to represent me. After exploring my twenty-five-year reading journey, my starting point, children's literature, most completely reflects myself.
 
    I love reading texts in children’s books because they are selected deliberately and have marked narratives. They describe the sophisticated concept or subject in simple ways. For example, Duck, Death and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch gently introduces readers to the concept of death. It's one of the most extraordinary books for me. I might enjoy the narrative style in children's books because it is preferable for me. In my normal conversations with others, I also try to be as gentle as possible. Talking about serious or controversial topics doesn't have to be aggressive for me. Moreover, most of the children's books contents are full of hope, which matches my personality well because I am an optimistic person.

A picture from Duck, Death and the Tulip

    My parents had read children's literature with me every single day for a while, resulting in impressive childhood memories, but it is not the main reason why I mention this kind of book. The most significant one is that children's books involve me in both roles of a reader and a creator. Art and design is my passion and related to my jobs, as a graphic designer and an illustrator. Much children's literature contains lots of illustrations, which is fascinating for me in both views. Working with this type of book is dedicated and interesting for me. Creating the dialogue text that works with the illustration well to enrich the reading experience is a complex job. In addition, Children's perceptions are different from ours. They do not handle the dimensions of pictures or illustrations well so illustrators have to consider this point to create a proper one for them. Exploring other illustrators' work gives me pleasure.

    Children's literature is not my most impressive type of book, but it's a unique piece of work for me. This kind of book provides me marked experience and I look for more than just pleasure from it. I think it represents me differently in more than just a reader’s role.