bye bye Mr. Berenstain

Days when I would go to the library and pick up 25 books or prop myself on the floor at the old Times bookstore at Centrepoint Mr. Berenstain would be there with his family of bears. I remember getting into a whole lot of trouble with the siblings and learning a huge lot about what's wrong and not and whatisthats from his books. Barbar, who could forget how noble, wise and soft-spoken he was. Then faster than you can say 'simi'; Sweet Valley High books beame the rage, Famous Five, Archie & gang came along and stole all your thunder Mr. Berenstain.

***

Fast forward ten years, library warehouse sale. "Shel Silverstein, and some hanging girl over the edge" she said. "Interesting, but maybe too kiddy. Who ever my age reads this?" she thought. But surreptitiously, she pays for it hoping no one notice. Years later she still devours every single word and stringy illustration with glee-likened to tehC induced sugar highs (for those of you that don't know, symptoms are talking really fast, constant giggling or both)

***

"Try this by Neil Gaiman. It's about dreams, very dark, you may like it, or not." he says. Of course she trusts him, she semi-looked up to this guy who seemed to have side-stepped off the curb of 'normal' education system; defied stereotypes of where people who go study five years in secondary school usually end up in and became so much more. The guy that forced her to drop her judgements and imagine sunset he described as a whirl of lilac, magenta and vermillion. With those words, the love affair reignited - with comics and graphic books (or for the atas graphis novels loh).