Deltora

When I was a young boy, life was troublesome, marred with uncertainty and incomprehension. Life at home was full of conflict, which I would not be able to understand until decades later. School was something of a battleground, with merciless bullies, severe instructors, and a central desire to be a part of the background rather than caught in the crossfire. There wasn’t much I could do to escape from the difficulties of my reality. The only settings available to me were ones of tension and trepidation, with little space for solitude. Even my bedroom was shared with my big brother, who could be hostile.

The solace I found came in little doses. Days at school that were a bit more forgiving, and evenings at home that were free from argument. But even in those small and quiet moments, I had worry gnawing at the back of my mind like a small carnivorous insect; worry about what the next day would bring.

Our school had a library, and I felt drawn to it from a very young age. The dependable silence, the atmosphere of peace, and walls upon walls of books. Much of them were far outside of my ability, but upon a recommendation from the kind and soft spoken librarian, I found a book called Deltora Quest: The Forests of Silence.

A fifteen book series, Deltora Quest was a wondrously immersive fantasy tale, about a young boy named Lief who sets out on adventure to restore the Belt of Deltora and end the tyrannical rule of the Shadow Lord. The covers of these books each contained a beautiful and horrifying illustration of a large, fantastical monster, which usually made its appearance at the end of each story. The books, written by an Australian author named Emily Rodda, were an international success, selling over eighteen million copies worldwide.

I took the first book home, but I didn’t read it right away. One thing or another was happening at home that kept me from finding the peace and quiet I needed to read. Eventually, on a quiet and cold winter night, with all of the stillness and serenity it can bring, I opened the first page and began reading.

Within just a few pages, I was obsessed with the story. It possessed me in a way that nothing had before, and in the first sitting I read almost half of the book, until my mother compelled me to go to sleep. It felt as though time and space had shifted while I was reading, and I found myself submerged deeper into a new and magnificent world with every turn of the page.

The next day at school, all I could do was think about that book. I would do my school work, do my homework, and at night, I would huddle under my blankets as if they were some small derelict shelter. With nothing but a flashlight and the words those pages held, I was absorbed into the world of those characters and their quest to restore the goodness within their homeland. Time, and the worry it usually instilled within me, would dissipate rapidly, and I would read until my eyelids began closing without my instruction.

I finished that first book in a few days, and took out the next, much to the satisfaction of the librarian. When I got the third book, I called out sick from school and finished the whole thing in one sitting. The Shifting Sands, Dread Mountain, The Maze of the Beast; each and every night was spent with those small colourful books clasped within my hands, my mind and attention a million miles away from where I really was. What had once been a time of darkness and anxiety had now become a time of beautiful enthralment, with life and colour and wonder far beyond what I had known before.

One by one, I fell through the pages of each book, moving through the series with the will of a strong river. I noticed that the problems in my life became less immediate. The insults and embarrassments from bullies began to dull, and what would once be an injury was now little more than a poke. The conflicts and arguments within my home were now a bit quieter, a bit more distanced, and I could find solace within the certainty that a different world, one with dragons and magic, passion and beauty, lay just a few feet away on my bedside table.

However, my voracious appetite for the books meant that I progressed through them quickly, and within a single year I had finished all fifteen of the books. The conclusion of such a series had brought me a tremendous sadness, a feeling of loss. I felt as if the door to that world had been closed forever.

And, I suppose in some ways it had. But what I discovered soon after was that it had opened up many other doors for me. The kind librarian, seeing me without the Deltora books on my person, recommended new series and different kinds of books to me. Some I liked, others I could never finish, and some I still hold dear to this day. That special passage into other worlds, other thoughts, other feelings and conflicts and romances, was now available to me indefinitely. I had awoken within myself a love for reading and all of things it provided.

All of it thanks to those first few pages on that cold and quiet winter night, with the stillness and serenity it can bring.