Personal Narrative: No Backpacks Inside The Store

The library was my Pandora’s Box, and it allowed me to escape into places and ideas far removed from what I thought to be a banal existence in a small historic village in the Appalachian Mountains. My youthful rebellions, and inquisitiveness, though often misguided and misplaced, were not to be tempered in my adult life. As a high school student I was emboldened by an

Fisher, had this corner in her classroom that had bookshelves. The bookshelves were set up in line with the wall in a way that created it’s own little “room”. She called it her “Classroom Library”. The deal with this “library” at, which we had learned at the beginning of the year, was that we could “checkout” any book we wanted, one at a time, if we asked her. Throughout the year we learned that this was not the case.

Books can sate, motivate, and inspire a reader without standing the test of time. There are a multitude of books released today that can change a reader’s life without making their mark on history. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is a prime example of this. Most critics agree that The Book Thief is a quality read, but there is no telling whether it will last throughout the ages of literature. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a novel that has lasted since its release in the nineteenth century, and critics continue to praise it. Jane Eyre shares similarities to The Book Thief; however, The Book Thief will not stand the test of time because of its lack of completely original themes and ideas.

As part of the greater push at that grade level to introduce kids to a greater depth of books, Mrs. Oak created a game that would award points based on the number and length of books that you read, with a prize being given to the winner at the end of every month (usually candy). Now being the clever nine year old brat that I was, I decided to game the system by quickly flipping through a great number of small children’s books every day. While this did put me ahead on points, I was completely avoiding the entire point of the game. So to Mrs. Oak’s great credit, she decided to limit the number of books I could check out of the school’s library to three per week. With my lead in the literary scoreboard slipping away, I checked out a book that

I spent my childhood consumed by books. I kept one in my bag and took every spare moment that I could to read, even if it was only a page. My parents made my teacher’s promise that I wouldn’t read during recess. In the mornings when they woke me up for school, they found me sleeping, still clutching my book from the night before, unable to put it down in spite of the tug of sleep.

In the beginning, the librarians acted as the mentors to my hero. They scanned Easy Children’s Fiction, introducing me to new friends, new stories, new universes. I braved first grade with Junie B. Jones, memorized Silverstein poems, and climbed tree houses with Jack and Annie. The months went by, the years went by, and eventually,

Nowadays, we take the ability to read for granted. But for Liesel Meminger, the opportunity to learn how to read was a gift. In the novel The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, more than one major theme relating to books and writing are evident. The power of words, literature, and reading, are all contributing to the overall theme of the power of books and writing in The Book Thief.

As Welty describes one experience from the library that gave her value’s as an adult; “You could take out two books at a time and two books only; this applied as long as you were a child and also for the rest of your life to.” This shows me how the librarian’s rules of the library had influenced her values of reading as a child and as an adult.

A small amount of time after school got out for summer my family, Kyla Carson, and I went to Minnesota. It was a long, grueling , and 8 hour trip from Arthur to Minnesota. When we finally got there we could see the Mall of America, which was connected to our hotel. I looked forward to the amusement park, eating the food, and the shopping. From 7p.m. to 10p.m. the amusement park had free rides and games for the group we were in. I had an amazing time because I could do anything since it was free. The pizza we had one day was amazing. The shopping was the best since there was enough shops to choose from. The Mall of America had specialty shops including The Peeps Store, The Lego Store , many specialty chocolate store, and many more.

Something set this second grader off from everyone in her class. It wasn’t just because she was the only one who liked broccoli amongst her peers, no. What made her stick out like a red dot in a canvas of black was the fact that she absolutely loved reading. Even her teacher was shocked. And it wasn’t just National Geographic Kids magazines or Pinkalicious picture books that built up her imagination. Her shelves were decked with books ranging from the anatomy of a frog to the seven books of the Chronicles of Narnia, to the gory series of The Hunger Games. Whatever she picked up she couldn’t put down, and whatever she couldn’t finish in class she’d try to steal, but to no avail.

The third and final strategy for The Book Thief is a Word Hunt. It is extremely important that students appreciate vocabulary, especially when reading a book that has such rich and descriptive vocabulary. Word hunts are great tools to assist students decipher words while reading, and even learn to appreciate descriptive and figurative language. The activity that the class will partake on will be writing down in their journal examples of figurative language. Then at the end of each class session students can share what they have found, and I will add it to the dry erase

Slam, slam, wham, Dad closed the car doors and the back loading door and dusted off his hands, looked straight up the face of the nearly vertical ski lift to where he knew the trailhead began, then looked at us and at the pile of stuff. "Are you guys sure you have enough supplies for a week?"

Being in love with animals is great, but rescuing them is life changing. Not only was it fun and exciting, but it was challenging. Having to be surrounded by so many different breeds and amazing people. Sending every dog we helped to a different rescue in different states, it was one of the best decisions I made joining various groups of amazing people. It was the best time of my life.

I will start with the Maurices bag first. So I had originally gone into Maurices just to look and see what they had. When I went in I was so excited about their clearance section. My two favorite items that I had gotten was 2 pleather Jackets. They came out to being around 15 dollars from around 69 dollars. They are cute and can be worn with so many different items. I was on the fence about the grey one at first simply due to it being bulky but then it grew on me as I thought of things I would wear with it. I love all the buckles, and how it zips. I also got a pull over sweat shirt. I thought it was so cute and it was in expensive also a great deal. The last two items that I got there were just some basic staple tank tops. I love how their

It was a cold December day and I only remember that because I used the window as an ice pack for my terrible injury. This terrible injury was something I never wished I would experience nor ever thought I would experience. It made my life very difficult for about two months and I never wish to relive that pain again.