Books were the escape hatch that carried me away during long, lonely times when my mother was gone. During the years I grew up wondering why my father didn’t want much to do with me, and the times I landed in schools where, with my wild black curls and olive-toned skin, I looked different from everyone else, and kids curiously inquired, What are you, anyway? Books made me believe that smart girls who didn’t necessarily fit in with the popular crowd could be the ones to solve mysteries, rescue people in distress, ferret out international criminals, fly spaceships to distant planets, take up
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