Marketing and Communications Coordinator Chloe Walton says her parents’ habit of giving books, in addition to Easter eggs, helped crack open her passion for reading

Easter can mean different things to different people, but for me Easter is as much about books as it is about chocolate.

I come from a family of readers, so reading was something my parents instilled in me from an early age. Books were given at Christmas, on birthdays, when we had been good, to keep us entertained on long drives and at Easter.

At the time, I thought I was receiving books so that my parents could avoid having to hide a truckload of chocolate eggs in the backyard, as the minute I found a book I would normally stop what I was doing and sit down to start devouring my treasured find. Now I realise that they were nurturing a love of reading, because when you have a good book, you can discover a world of new friends and adventures.

Once, I saw reading as a chore, but as I got older and I got to explore different book genres and authors, understanding what type of books I like and why, reading started to become a passion. And now I’m lucky that I get to be surrounded by books every day for work – I’m not saying I think that this was my parent’s endgame, but I do have them to thank for starting me on this journey.

Books are still given as gifts and passed around in my family on a regular basis. It’s a tradition that will never stop, and now that there’s a new generation I’ll be continuing the tradition of giving a book at Easter as well. Along with a chocolate egg, of course.