Year 8/28

Have your parents ever punished you? My older brother and I are just kids with a lot of energy. We're top of our class at primary school, but phone calls from our teachers force our parents to take harsh measures. And this one significantly changed my life: It was already common practice that we had to do our homework straight after school and hand it in. The same went for cancelled TV time and grounding. Having to sit quietly on the sofa as an active child is painful enough, but then came the stroke of genius. Torture. We had to go to the library and borrow a book. We then had to read it within a certain time frame and be prepared for the threatened test on the summary. Don't forget, I was 8 years old. So my brother and I tried to cheat with the Guinness Book of Records, but didn't get very far. So we had to borrow new books. And that's where I found a thick book that appealed to me: Harry Potter. At the age of 8, I read all 6 volumes that had been published to date and fell in love with the written storytelling. My mother sometimes had to force me and snatch the book out of my hands so that I would finally go to sleep. Thank you for the agonising punishment. Typical migrants.