Readers Digest UK - December 2021

DECEMBER 2021 • 127

Shizuko’s Daughter
by Kyoko Mori
As a mixed race child, I often
found myself wanting to hide half
of who I was. When I was with
other Korean children, I
desperately wished to be less
American. When I went to school, I wanted to eat
turkey sandwiches instead of the lovingly
prepared doshirak lunchbox my mother gave
me. I think so much of my desire was rooted in
that sense of not seeing myself anywhere, and
especially not in the books I loved. Even though
Shizuko’s Daughter is about a Japanese girl, I
remember when I saw the cover and realised
there could be a story about someone just like
me. It was the first step for me to gain the
confidence I needed to write the books I wanted
to read, for children from all walks of life.

The Book of Three

by Lloyd Alexander

This book was the first

to whet my appetite for

fantasy stories filled

with dragons, magic

baubles and mythical

quests. Before this, I

often found myself daydreaming about

what it might be like to suddenly have a

magical power. Perhaps the power to

predict the future, or fly through the air, or

spin silk from straw. When I read about

Taran the assistant pigkeeper, I knew I’d

found a story that would fill my head with

more possibilities. These books made me

close my eyes and hope I might find myself

in Prydain, listening to a wandering bard or

learning to fight with a sword.

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The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
I fell in love with vampires the day my father forbade me from reading Anne
Rice. Naturally, that very night I snuck his weathered copy of The Queen of
the Damned beneath my covers to read by torchlight, and I was transported.
I never forgot that feeling of being hypnotised by words as I was lulled into
Rice’s dangerous world. It was the first time I thought to myself, I want to do
this. One of the things I bought for myself with my first royalty check was a first
edition of this book. I took it with me to New Orleans so that Anne Rice could
sign it. For me, her work was life-changing.

Books

THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

American-Korean author Renée Ahdieh is best

known for her New York Times best-selling series

The Wrath & the Dawn. Her latest novel, The Righteous,

is published December 7 by Hodder & Stoughton