Joy of Reading‪.‬

"Always with your nose in a book," my mother used to sigh after calling my name in vain for supper. Her observation was more accurate than she suspected, thinking as she did that I was familiar with the mystery of letters when I was still reading with my nose, not my eyes. It was, in fact, the mention of my nose that finally drew me from the book to register her impatience. The book succeeded where castor oil and clothespins had failed; it proved that I had a nose. YOU see, the existence of my nose was a matter of great concern to me as a child. My older brother, an unquestioned authority on most things by virtue of his sex and age, would come home from school and invite his friends and our other siblings to join in the hunt for his baby sister's olfactory organ. They would pin me in a corner, scrutinize my face, and then, with a collective and solicitous sigh, pronounce the quest a failure.