Gus has Fuzz

I’ve always loved reading and when I was very young I loved being read to. One of the picture books that got read over and over again was “Where’s Spot?” and even now I can recite half the book!

“Where’s Spot? Naughty Spot, it’s dinner- time. Where can he be? ... Is he behind the door? No... Is he inside the clock? No... Is he under the rug? No... Is he behind the plant? ...”

My parents must have become absolutely sick of this book by the time I outgrew it and I’m pretty sure it was starting to fall apart!

John Green of the Vlogbrothers has recently had a baby and was talking about a kid’s book about a bug called Gus. I had never heard of this book before but it reminded me of “The Hungry Caterpillar”. However, I never really liked that book finding the holes in the pages to be the only vaguely interesting thing. I’m not quite sure why that was the case because I was usually fascinated by any book with animals in. Maybe it was just the fact that the main character in this book was an insect rather than a cuddly dog like Spot or a nice farm animal likes those in Apple Tree Farm. (Again another book, or series of books, where the repetitive beginning is still engrained in my memory! “This is Apple Tree Farm. This is Mrs Boot the farmer. She has two children called Poppy and Sam and a dog called Rusty.” These books often also contained a naughty sheep. Maybe that was why I liked the series....)

As I’ve grown up my love of books has certainly not diminished. I went on to be totally obsessed with the Animal Ark series. I collected many of the books and a whole bookshelf was dedicated to my obsession. I was even so absorbed by the whole concept of being the daughter of two vets that I dressed up as Mandy Hope for one World Book Day in about year three or four. I even still had the little name tag my dad made for me until not so long ago!

Admittedly, I now realise that the whole series had pretty much the same basic storyline for each book. Nevertheless, they certainly fed my veterinary interests and my love of reading.

I still love reading but I just wish I had more time for it. I have a long list of books on my ‘to read’ pile and I get just as obsessive about terrible books as I did when I was younger! Oh dear Terrie, why do we love the Twilight saga?!