Growth Process Essay

Gloria Ho

Professor Breech

English 120 L13

18 December 2014

How I Became a Bookworm

I used to hate reading. As a child I would only open a book to look at the pictures and as an adolescent reading only took place online to get the summary and rundowns of each chapter for book assignments. Reading was a pain and no matter what it was, it was too long, took too much time, too much effort. The most confusing part for me was why pretty up words that could be said in a forthright manner? I precisely remember in elementary school at the very end of read alouds the teacher would talk about the moral of the story or the purpose behind the whole book, I would think “Why couldn’t the author just say that in the first place?” It baffled me how people could ever enjoy not to mention analyse the meaning of a story that took hundreds of pages to convey. Why over complicate something that could be so simple?

When I entered middle school my opinion on reading didn’t change much however it wasn’t until my second and third year that I truly learned the beauty of books. Around that period of time my family life was a bit hectic and there was pressure in doing well in school because it was the last few years of grades that high schools look at during the admissions process. I was not doing well in school getting B-’s at best but mostly C or C-’s. I was a shy kid so I couldn’t really suck up to teachers like other not-as-bright kid’s did back then. The fact that I brought low grades back home definitely did not help. Overall, I wasn’t doing so well emotionally. I would spend most nights thinking about why couldn’t I be as smart as most kids or why I couldn’t be as outspoken as others. Basically I spent most of my childhood with a lot of “why’s”. I don’t remember what book I read but that book set off something. It allowed me to push aside all the issues in my life at that time and get transported into a new one. I was able to just get lost in a world that was different from mine and live through characters that have way larger problems than I would probably ever have. Reading gave me the comfort of making my personal situation feel miniscule. It allowed me to look at the world with a wider lens. From that one book I began to read more and more. At first I read really slowly and sometimes I would zone out on one page (sometimes I still do) and reread one sentence over again and I would give up on some but I would keep reading. At the end of my middle school year, I still didn’t get great grades but I managed to only get one C and B’s for the rest of my classes but overall I was relatively happier. Reading helped me learn how to deal with emotional turmoil or at least cope with it. However the biggest progression for me was that my bookworm-ness became a part of me that I loved and the fact that reading gave me something to like about myself, at that time, was incredibly precious.

Before entering I high school I would read for the sake of the story however upon entering high school I read to learn and that only made me love reading even more. The first book assigned in my english class of freshman year was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie a easy read that taught me about embracing every part of myself, everything I was born with; my race, my physical appearance, and where I grew up and everything I picked up along the way. The second book assigned was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, it was filled with symbolism, metaphors, and life lessons and I loved everything single part of it. So much so that I ended up purchasing my own copy and rereading it on my own time (it also become incredibly useful during the SAT’s). Until this book was assigned I mainly read books that focused on telling an interesting story and was easy to understand but this book was the exact opposite it was jam packed with literary devices and forced me to think about the significance in every page. It completely altered the perspective of the elementary school me. This book showed me about how amazing literature can be in the way that it is carefully and skillfully crafted to make readers think, question, and connect back to his/her own life and being able to successfully analyse the messages that are trying to be conveyed was something that motivated me to read and analyse more challenging text. I could probably go on about what I learned in the next book and the next since there were so many but reading has enabled me to discover aspects of myself.

My opinion of reading has changed greatly throughout different stages of my life. However, it was only when I actually started truly reading that I felt myself growing as an individual. It’s dramatic and cliche but there is still so much to read and as long as I continue reading I look forward to how much more it can change in my life.