If you love listening to audio books or podcasts, you’re not alone. And did you know it’s just like being read to? There’s nothing quite like listening to somebody’s curated voice soothing your eardrums with a wonderful story— whether genre or literary fiction, creative non-fiction, sports or nature documentaries, horror or crime diaries, fairytales or myths and legends.

In my early years in Primmer 1-2, I loved the simple little reading books, but of course it’s never really about the words as a little 5yo, it’s about the wonder. I really learned a love of reading by hearing stories. At school, I listened to teachers. At home, the radio.

Wow. Radio story-time memories on steroids! Who else got up on a Sunday morning to crowd around a little faux-leather transistor radio to listen to stories on 2ZB? Or 1ZB? Or 3ZB? And not just any stories. How about Spike Milligan’s Badjelly the Witch? Can we forget the witchy ear worm that fifty years later still hits with a terrifying and validating cadence:

“Stinky poo! Stinky poo! Knickers! Knickers! Knickers!”

Then, another favourite: Sparky and the Talking Train, a 1947 story written by voice actor Henry Blair for Capitol Records audio drama.

“Help me Sparky! Help me Sparky! Right front wheel… right front wheel.”

Magic. Sparking. In brain. And heart. Listening to stories gives you the chance to turn wonder and imagination into reading new words in magical books, or writing your own words in magical notebooks.

Image of Shelley Burne-Field: supplied.

It’s a wonderful fact, when I attended primary school at about 8-10 years, I struck a magical treasure chest full of imagination gold. A wonderful primary school teacher named Mrs Barbara Golden decided to move to my home town. She was golden in beauty, brains, books, and sports, and had a big golden heart. She also possessed a golden attitude towards reading, seeing the wonder in story and imagination, and knew exactly how to pass on that passion to the kids in her class.

Sure, we wrote in our exercise books. We took home spelling notebooks. We learned about sentence structure and the simple architecture of language appropriate to our age. However, Mrs Golden (Barby to her friends i.e. everyone) welcomed us to this brand new world by offering books and the School Journal to read, but most importantly by reading books to the class.

The best read-a-loud book that I remember most is Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. And I can only hear it in Mrs Golden’s honey tones, which makes it even more wonderful.

The happiness and tears and sadness and joy connected this story to my little body and soul. I had access to human emotions (vicariously through animal characters!) which I was feeling as a child, but did not have the language or framework to understand or describe. Mrs Golden gave me that connection.

I sit at my desk and rest my chin in my hands. I’m transported to the farmyard, sometimes smelly, sometimes dangerous, sometimes hilariously fun, where Wilbur the pig meets Charlotte the spider. She talks to him. She listens. She is compassionate. He cries. She cries. She has a soft voice. Wilbur now has a friend. A friend who wants to help him. A friend who can read AND spell. They—we—me—are in this story together.

And the stakes could not be higher.

I came from a challenged home with no books in the house other than Mills & Boons romances, a few ripped Commando comics, and a bible that was not very well read. School and Mrs Golden-type teachers were my access to stories, emotions, and hope. And fun! Let’s not forget the fun. She lit the spark, and my journey to reading more and more was only going to get better.

When my beautiful mother got a part-time job, near the end of my time in Mrs Golden’s class, Mum proudly said I could choose a book every couple of months from the Lucky Book catalogue. It was like no Christmas I had ever experienced! One of the very first books I chose was the Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone. It was the first of the Fighting Fantasy book series where YOU became the hero. Every page you’re given a choice. Perhaps it was the first moment I realised a person (or magician, robot, or monster) had agency. I was not just reading words, my fingers were furiously turning pages. I could feel the breeze from flicking through page numbers; hear the whir from thumbing the corners. My heartbeat ramped up because I was breaking rules and reading by the faint hallway light. I was participating. I was feeling.

Warlock was one of the first books I owned and was allowed to take home. It provided a talisman for my younger brother and I to traverse other worlds using our imagination. Space travel; haunted houses; a city of cutthroat thieves; a citadel of chaos. Even navigating the inside of Firetop Mountain.

Over the course of a few years, both of us used our paper money to buy more of the Fighting Fantasy series. My brother continued on with the later books, while I discovered Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. A love of fantasy was born in one little rickety house.

Now, I’m so proud to get emails and letters from teachers, parents, librarians, and kaumatūa who tell me they are reading my books to the tamariki in their lives. The books I wrote! What?! It makes me so happy.

My first middle grade novel, Brave Kāhu and the Pōrangi Magpie, can be read by 8-13 year olds, but are being read by adults to 5-7 year olds—and the kids and the grown-ups are loving the stories! The same goes for my second novel, Kimi the Kekeno’s Big Adventure, and third novel, Ana & Frog Search for Minty the missing horse. And as a reader and writer, I couldn’t be more proud.

You see, I’m trying to be as golden as I can. My wish is to inspire the love of storytelling, the wonder of imagination, and to open up access into a world of books and other forms of story where everyone can take part. Thanks to schools, librarians, bookshops, parents, whānau and friends for unlocking those treasure chests. Special thanks to Barby, Sir Ian, Steve, Henry and Spike, and ZB radio, for passing on a precious taonga: inspiring tamariki and all of us to read by eye, ear, mind, body and soul.

For more about Shelley's work, check out her Writers File, and to learn more about what's happening around the motu for NZ Children's Book Week, we've got you covered.