Margherita Still's story about Green Eggs and Ham

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss changed my life when I was seven years old. Firstly I want to make it clear that I had a great childhood, growing up in the seventies on a Scottish council scheme was great for me. I played outside with the rest of the kids on my street, I was never lonely, but my family were poor, properly poor. I didn’t know that then so it wasn’t important but now I know that it was one of the factors in my incredibly slow start at school. We never had many books and we certainly didn’t have any children's books at home because we couldn’t afford them.
My mum was Italian and my dad fought in the Second World War so my home life was interesting but not very good for language development. My speech was mixed with Italian pronunciation, west coast slang and occasional swear words. I have a very strong memory of the infant teachers being horrified at me when I started school, especially the infant mistress who constantly corrected me and took it upon herself to reinforce the fact that I was stupid.
After a year of school I couldn’t read and had a real problem telling the difference between blue and purple. Slowly I began to form the idea that I was stupid, and it stuck. For the next two years of school I didn’t try too hard and was happy to be left alone, colouring in or counting, which I could do although unnoticed by the infant mistress. My class teachers were frustrated by my lack of progress but I never believed them when they said I could do better.
Then our local library burned down. At the time I had borrowed Green Eggs and Ham and despite the requests for borrowed books to be returned I kept it. This became the first book I owned and I loved it. I looked at it again and again until eventually I could read it, cover to cover.
Suddenly I had achieved something that I believed I couldn’t and it changed my way of thinking. I wasn’t stupid any more I started to learn. I learned so fast that I went from the bottom of the class to the top, I went from Green Eggs and Ham to a whole feast of books, any thing I could get my hands on.
And the rest as they say is history. I made my English teacher proud with an A at Higher, one of very few at my school, then achieved what I needed to get where I wanted and now have three kids who have a mountain of books.
Today I teach, and I never tell children they can’t, they just can’t yet.