Childhood

I have read a number of books dealing with the holocaust. It was a terrible, terrible part of history, but because of that it also happens to be unusually fascinating. I have found the books I have read on the subject beautiful and heart-wrenching and inspiring. I haven't read all that I wish I had, but I read both Hiding Place and Man's Search for Meaning during high-school and loved them. In addition to this, I also went through about a year-long phase a bit earlier when I read a whole bunch of them right in a row. This particular phase is my real topic for this post.

You see, I hadn't really ever considered it strange that I had gone through a phase like this. I read books. I always have. In fact, I hadn't even thought of this at all in quite a while. Then, a few weeks ago, I was talking to my family and the subject of childhood came up. At one point in the conversation my my mother said something like this:

"...and there was that time when Diane was 6 years old and read all of those holocaust books."

Wait.

6 years old? I was 6 years old when I went through that phase? I thought back and found that it was, indeed, true.

So, yeah, pretty much I was reading books on human cruelty and suffering when I looked like this:

They were my favorite books too. And I wondered why I didn't have any friends.