My Interest In Literature

James Patterson perfectly sums up my lengthy, arduous, and ever-changing relationship with reading. "There is no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are kids who love reading, and kids who are reading the wrong books." As I grow older, and come to appreciate the influence that words have over the human mind and soul, this quote resonates with me more deeply. The interpretation of words has had an immense impact over my life, and is something I will be forever indebted to.

In elementary school, I loved to read. Writing was not a big deal either due to the fact that we did not have to write four page essays. It was in first grade when I started to like reading. Reading has just been freshly introduced, considering we had only completed one year of school. My teacher always read to us and I wanted to read those books as well. Throughout elementary school I started to read Junie B. Jones books, which were my favorite. All of the books were about a first grade girl and her different adventures. I had always enjoyed reading those books. Each book had a different topic which I would always relate to in some way. Although I liked to read, I did struggle with reading comprehension which made me dislike writing as well. I hated having to read and then go and write about it. To this day, I still do not like reading comprehension, but my feelings toward reading and writing have changed.

I never understood the point of reading. My parents first introduced my siblings and I to its world at the early age of two. We were familiarized with letters, taught to link sound the visual and formed words with a stuttering start. We became accustomed to the quiet of Tuesday nights when my father would sit huddled on the sofa – my mother curled up in bed – his long nose buried in a novel, a black curtain cascading from her head to the pages, morphing into one with their respective books. As the night drew close the browns of their eyes would light up, while my mother’s red lips would quiver with excitement and my father would flash a lopsided smile. “Reading is an adventure,” they’d

I have never been as comfortable with people made of flesh and bone than I have been with those made of words. Whatever information I lose in the contours of the human face, I have no trouble locating in the unchanging, permanent text of a book. There is something about literature that felt safe to me; the worlds created within far more welcoming to little girls with problems fitting in than the one outside the pages. For this reason, fiction, from Harry Potter to The Book Thief, has remained my greatest passion ever since I learned to read.

Children’s literature is an effective teaching tool for children but also a way for children to escape their daily lives through fantasy. Didactic material can be used to teach life lessons, manners and morals where subversive and fantasy genres can allow children to release from daily expectations and allows an outlet for their large imaginations.

Before we divulge into the topic of this essay, let me begin by stating that neither the author of the main source, Steven Johnson, nor I intend to devalue books or look down upon them. In his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, he starts off talking about the importance of books. He says, “We should all encourage our kids to read more, to develop a comfort with and an appetite for reading” (Johnson 21). Reading provides many different benefits, some including “concentration, the ability to make sense of words, to follow narrative threads, to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on pages” (Johnson 23). As an avid reader myself, I have always had an interest in books.

My passion for reading began the summer before junior high, the English class I would be taking had a required summer reading list. I had no desire to read “boring books” over the summer and summarize them. Fortunately, my parents made me read the first book and I was hooked. Consequently, I became obsessed (in a positive way) with this unbelievable adventure; “The Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen; transported me to the wilderness that summer and sparked my love for reading. From that moment on reading became my favorite pastime. Literature expanded my world beyond the Rio Grande Valley I visited the “Island of the Blue Dolphins”, and decided I needed dogs with “Where the Red Fern Grows”. I have several beloved books that I never get tired of reading,

1. There are numerous reasons about why Miss Narwin’s opinion of reading books differs from Philip’s opinion. The first reason is that Miss Narwin is a mature adult, who can understand literature better than children. Miss Narwin also has a love for classic literature, which not everyone shares. The second reason is that Philip would enjoy books that were written when he was growing up; it would be easier to understand and relate to for him. I concur with Miss Narwin’s point of view, as I love to read and some older books have a deeper meaning to them. I also agree with Miss Narwin, for I believe that more classic literature should be spread, so that classics won’t be forgotten. Philip’s attitude might be considered a self-fulfilling prophecy since most children would not have such a deep love towards classic literature. Children also appreciate books that they can understand and relate to.

Before I began elementary school, I enjoyed reading picture books, the touch and feel books and pop-up books. I loved the author Dr. Suess, because he was funny and because I loved the rhyming he did in his writing. I can remember before bed, my mom or dad would read to me until I got old enough to read myself. My mom has always enjoyed reading, if she is not reading a book, then she is reading a recipe or a magazine. My dad on the other hand, I have only seen him read one book, besides reading manuals for his tools. Reading was not a big deal in my house, all of us kids were told that we needed to read, but they did not force us to read. This brings me to Richard Rodriguez’s essay, in his household reading was not as important, but once he got to school, he realized that reading is one of the main activities. I can relate to Rodriguez because in either one of our households we weren’t told that we had to read before we did something else. Once I got to elementary school is when I realized that reading was not for me. Before school, I enjoyed reading, then once I began elementary school, I was forced to read, take tests over books, and read out loud in front of the class which made reading a chore.

Throughout all of time, literature has played an important role in people’s lives. Books are more than just stories to laugh at, cry with, or fall asleep to, but books can teach. Literature

Harry Potter, Junie B. Jones, Narnia, Lemony Snicket, Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, Goosebumps, Magic Tree House, and the Boxcar Children: Popular book series that most kids get into. I never did. Ever since school required mandatory reading, I perceived books as hassles. School effectively turned me off of reading for pleasure. Going into middle school, where students have regular book reports and summer reading, I faced a challenge. To make it by I had to learn to live with books, as they played an integral part to my career as a student. However, my current state of mind labeled reading a hassle and wanted nothing to do with it, necessitating change. Transitioning from elementary to middle school, I matured both physically and intellectually.

Reading was the new outlet for my imagination and the stories I read fascinated me. They weren’t too unlike the scripts of computer games or the own stories I came up with on my own, but books actually had the action and emotional aspects written out. And again, while my peers were reading things about growing up, things that had morals and would teach valuable lessons (I remember one book about a shoplifter who had to do community service at an animal shelter), I read real fiction: Jurassic Park, Dragonriders of Pern, Lord of the Rings… Stuff of fantasy and science-fiction that let my mind stray from reality. Stuff that kept my imagination alive while I was being forced to learn multiplication and the names of countries. Of course, my teachers encouraged me to keep reading, as long as I wasn’t doing the reading in the middle of their lectures. But it wasn’t because of their influence, however, that kept me interested in books. It was because I loved it. It put pictures into my head and made me think. So I kept reading. But even then I knew reading wasn’t enough… Yes, the stories were fascinating, but they weren’t what I wanted. Back then I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but as middle school came to a close, I found it.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn the more places you’ll go,” says the famous author Dr. Seuss. In today’s culture though, many children spend great amounts of time staring at their personal devices or watching television. Children do not realize that reading provides a form of entertainment that proves not only educational but fun, too. Providing an exciting way to learn, books offer better entertainment than a movie, since books last longer than a movie because reading takes longer, as a result of this, they give more detail. Also, books grow the reader’s imagination because they allow the reader to envision the setting themselves. Whether through fairy tales, historical

I would like to preface this essay by stating that I am not fond of reading books. Starting in elementary school, with the way literature was handled, I began perceiving reading books as an obligation, nothing more. Few of the books we were made to read over the years interested me, so I tend not to read them out of my own volition. There were exceptions, of course – I enjoyed reading Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, for example.

As a child, my interests were more focused on reading than writing. In elementary school I fell in love with books. Initially I read simple children’s books, much like everybody else in my class, but it did not take long for my passion to drive me to read more difficult writings. Fiction books quickly became a replacement for any childhood toys. Instead of blocks or stuffed animals I would ask my parents for books. Since they were aimed at young readers, they tended to be short. I found myself going through them within days, and then soon several hours. Towards the end of elementary school I was reading series like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was captivated, and reading truly opened up a whole new world for me.