Vancouver Sun

COMFORT IN WORDS

Reading was therapeuti­c for Pearson as a youngster

- STEPHANIE IP To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, we are counting down to Canada Day with profiles of 150 noteworthy British Columbians. sip@postmedia.com twitter.com/stephanie_ip

For some children, reading is an adventure, a way to break out of reality’s confines. For others, it’s comfort and consolatio­n, a way to withdraw into a magical world.

For Canadian author Kit Pearson, reading was the latter and the result of a challengin­g childhood where she had trouble making friends.

“I was a timid child, shy at school and birthday parties, and afraid of things under the bed,” she writes in her biography.

“Reading became my greatest comfort.”

It makes sense, then, that Pearson would go on to become one of Canada’s most revered authors, sharing works such as The Daring Game and The Sky is Falling.

Pearson was born in Edmonton in 1947 and often spent time reading. When she was eight, her family moved to Vancouver, where she said she found close friends for the first time in her young life.

In her early teens, however, Pearson’s family moved back to Alberta and she was “devastated,” turning to books once more for comfort and solace.

“Once again, books saved me: I devoured them, literally,” she shares. “I was so involved in the story that I didn’t notice that I was nibbling at the corners of the pages. One book I consumed was L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon. When I finished reading it I decided that, like Emily, I would also become a writer.”

Pearson began keeping a journal, but didn’t begin to write devotedly until much later. As a teenager, she returned to Vancouver to attend Crofton House School and again was able to find friends and explore her passion for English literature.

Following a brief time at the University of B.C., Pearson returned again to Edmonton to complete her undergradu­ate degree at the University of Alberta. She then moved back to Vancouver to complete a library degree before taking up her first library job in St. Catharines, Ont.

After working for a few years, Pearson became serious about pursuing a career in creative writing and completed a master’s degree in Boston and shortly after wrote The Daring Game, a novel about a young girl’s friendship­s at boarding school.

“There is nothing as thrilling as finishing one’s first book,” she writes in her bio.

“Then the honeymoon was over, for I had to find a publisher. The first two I sent it to turned it down, but the third, Penguin Books Canada, accepted it.”

Since then, Pearson has gone on to write a dozen books, several collection­s of short stories and a picture book titled The Singing Basket.

Today, Pearson lives in Victoria with her partner Katherine and their red poodle.

 ?? JOHN MCKAY/VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST ?? Kit Pearson “devoured” books as a kid before becoming a successful author.
JOHN MCKAY/VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST Kit Pearson “devoured” books as a kid before becoming a successful author.

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