It’s been a while since I posted on the blog, and while there’s a gap, I’m jumping in. As many of you know, my mum passed in late June. She’s the reason I’m here. I don’t mean biologically, although that too, but rather, literarily. I fell in love with story, as a toddler on her knee.

Back then, the works of Dr. Seuss were hot reads, along with Are You My Mother, by PD Eastmann. As I grew, The Berenstain Bears became firm favorites and always provided a few giggles. The works of Roald Dahl, and Enid Blyton followed, before I grew enough to embrace the classics for myself.

I remember once, I was probably 12 or 13 and came down with hideous stomach flu. So bad I couldn’t even sit up to watch TV. This was when I met the March sisters. My amazing mum, who worked full time, read me all the way through Little Women before full health returned.

Now I’m fully grown, I do love the printed word and am just starting 26 Below by our own Kimberley Woodhouse. On my Kindle, I’m reading an advanced copy of The Beacon Street Bookshop by Carla Laureano. My mum reading to me has left a forever impact, and so on Audible, I’m listening to An Uncommon Courtship by Kristi Ann Hunter, with Counterfeit Faith by the BRRC’s Crystal Caudill up next.

And that is plenty. Of course it is. But also, not the extent of my eclectic TBR. For nonfiction I’m loving Amy Orr Ewing’s Why Trust the Bible and Write Your First Novel, by Gilbert Morris and Steve Laube.

Since the Enid Blyton days, when I first discovered a torch under the duvet worked just as well as the bedside lamp, and got around the awkward lights out timing, stories have been my permanent sidekicks. I read in bed, listen in the car or on walks and at the gym, and love nothing more than a fire, a view, a cup of coffee and a novel. Or a desk, a notebook, a textbook of some sort (and still the coffee).

Now, how about you? Tell me your favorite stories you remember being read as a child?

I fell in love with stories, as a toddler on her knee. @Debb_Hackett spills the beans on how important her mom was in her reading life. Share on X

Writer, broadcaster and speaker Debb Hackett was a radio journalist for more than twenty years. Married to a Royal Air Force test pilot, Debb has written an award winning Bible study for military wives. A regular contributor to the Advanced Writers and Speakers devotional Arise Daily, she runs the popular The Word on Wednesday devotional.

Based near London, England she’s working on a contemporary romance series, was an ACFW Genesis award semi-finalist in 2020 and won the Foundation Award at the Blue Ridge Conference in 2021. When she’s not writing, Debb can be found leading worship, playing bass or skiing. If you can swing by her house while she’s making scones, that would also be a win.

Learn more at Debb’s BRRC Author page.