Personal Literary Essay By Maya Fahmy

When I was a child I had a passion for reading that I gained from the support of teachers and my mom. My mom had a love for reading and that soon and that helped encouraged me to continue to read as well and fueled my passion to read. One day I received a book called “The Little Engine That Could” because of my obsession I had with trains. To today’s

My love of reading blossomed when I was a child, because my parents showed me how wonderful reading is. There were countless nights when I remember myself as a little girl refusing to go to sleep before ‘tucking dad into bed’ by reading him a picture book. Not only did I uphold that tradition though, but my mother is a preschool teacher, so she gets really into reading out loud, and she would help me read books such as The Boxcar Children set, The Secret of NIMH and The Chronicles of Narnia weekly until I didn’t need help anymore.

Maya Angelou, named at birth, Marguerite Johnson was on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her and her family moved from St. Louis to Stamps, Arkansas, where she was raised growing up. Maya Angelou was an American author, dancer, screenwriter, actress, poet and civil rights activist. Angelou gained a majority of her fame with the memoir she wrote in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir made literary history as being the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. Angelou received many awards and honors throughout her entire career. These awards included two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009. Angelou became one of the most legendary and influential

Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928. Her real name is Marguerite Johnson, but she later changed it to Maya. She was born in St. Louis, shortly after her birth her family up and move to Arkansaw. Maya grew up there in the rural parts of Arkansaw, and later married to a South African Freedom Fighter. She lived in Cairo with him, there she began her career as editor of the Arab Observer.

While my love for reading sprouted, I soon became obsessed with writing. My passion for reading only helped my writing skills to prosper. In fifth grade, I had a teacher who very well understood that reading and writing were important. Every day, we had a half an hour to write about whatever we wanted. Boy, my imagination ran wild. I often wrote fiction stories. My favorite part was when the teacher allowed us to share our stories with the whole class at the end of the week. This one activity really sparked the beginning of my love for writing.

Some fall in love with literature early in life and continue a deep passion for it throughout time. I on the other hand cannot say the same. When I began reading like most it was simple works intended for young minds, often those types of reading lack much substance and I lacked interest. Later, I began to enjoy books that the mind to different places. I began to have an interest in dystopian fiction.

My experience with literature started when I was in the first grade. My first-grade teacher was named Ms. Young. Every Friday, all the teachers would come together to have story time and read the children a book. I would be so excited for story time because I would sit down with my best friends Ashley and Jordan, and we would listen to the teacher that was assigned to read to us. During story time, all the children would gather around in a big circle and the teacher would be in the center in a big brown rocking chair, and read. Over time in the school year, the children would read bigger and longer books like the Junie B. Jones series, chapter books, and the extreme level, which would be the Harry potter series. Sometimes I would fall asleep because the book that was read was very dull. I remember Ms. Young read to us the “Very Hungary Caterpillar”9 by Eric Carle. I loved that book as a child. It had great illustrations of the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. This book made me love reading for the rest of my life. Now in college, I love to read books. I only

One of my all time passions is reading. I credit my love of reading to my dad, who has spent a great portion of his life reading as well. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad reading Harry Potter to me and my siblings, though I was the only child listening. My love of reading has only grown since then. Through reading I have learned about countless worlds and thousands of stories. I have discovered myself in between the pages of many different books, and I have learned more about people and the world arund me. Of all the ways to spend time, reading may be my absolute

Literature has always been a close personal friend. I've always been surrounded and engrossed with books. One of the first books I ever read was Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I must've read that book a thousand times when I was little. When I was in preschool my friend and I comically read along to the book. I credit most of my ability to read early on to my elementary's school librarian. I remember vividly in kindergarten our librarian teacher holding a book in her hand showing off the pictures. I was completely enthralled, more so than probably other children in the class. As time went on and I passed from grade to grade, I started to read books from the school's library. Most books I read were about tornadoes. I've always been fascinated with how

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,

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.

Reading has been one of my favorite hobbies since I was a little child. I grew up as a normal child should grow and eventually I had to start learning for me to fit in society. My literacy started many years ago, after I knew how to talk and communicate with people. Reading my alphabet was quite stressful and I had to be given a hand by my family members. I remember my parents reading with me and it was the most meaningful and memorable way to spend time with me. This is because I liked reading a lot and I was eager to learn so that I could fit in with my older siblings. My favorite books were storybooks taking about adventures and fairytales

Although reading literature when being forced and for educational purposes has withered my once love of reading, I can still vividly remember where my love of reading began. My comfy living room couch holds my

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.

The beginning of my interest in reading goes way back, although I don’t have any defining “aha!” moment, where I all of a sudden enjoyed reading books. There were always books around when I was growing up, if I was at my grandparents house it was the books they kept from their youth; classics like Treasure Island or any Hemingway book, the hard covers permanently infused with dust; plenty of History books, particularly World War II history; and the children’s books I always received as presents when I visited. My mom also read a lot, but more modern books, like supernatural or light horror books, nothing too difficult (or scary). I spent a lot of time reading magazines, mostly Video Game (note: spent more time creating stories off the