Escaping Reality With Words on a Page

As a young child, I was always fascinated by words on a page. Before I could even comprehend what the words said, I would be engrossed by the shapes and formations of the alien squiggles on the paper. I couldn't have been any older than three when I would sit at my grandmother's house in Truman, Arkansas and write my name on a piece of printer paper with my little set of pink sparkly pencils. My aunt and grandmother would always be so pleased with me when I would write my tiny backwards "d" at the end of my name. Although my handwriting was horrendous up until about 4th grade, this was the beginning of not only a love, but a passion for reading and writing.

As I began kindergarten and started to learn to read, my mom and kindergarten teacher were my biggest influences when it came to learning to read.When I started to comprehend more and more words, my older brother would read the Berentstein Bears to me. Although my mom thought that he was helping, he was probably doing more harm than good. Being the goofy older brother that he is, he decided to replace words of his choosing with a word he made up or, "jobbish." I guess I sort of picked it up as we went, because my mom tells me how I used to throw the word around in conversation as a child. When she asked my brother where I was getting this from, he pretended like he had no clue what she was talking about. It wasn't until she overheard him that she realized I was getting the word from him.  After explaining to me that the word he made up is most certainly not a word, my use of it came to a halt.

Thankfully, I quickly forgot about my brother's silly word use and became mystified by the thin little books that my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Mullen, would read with us. We had little groups that we would get in everyday and she would read with us instead of just reading to us. I think this definitely factored in with how quickly I picked up on reading.

Growing up, my mom was always an avid reader, and as I progressed from Berentstein Bears to Junie B. Jones to Nancy Drew, she always gave me new suggestions and helped me with anything I needed. I really think that the transition from Junie B. Jones to Nancy Drew is when my love for reading really became fervent. I always had my nose stuck in a Nancy Drew mystery, trying to solve it before she did. I even dressed up as her for character day at school.

The summer before fifth grade started, I read all of the Harry Potter books. These books weren't just a few books I read along the way, they made an impact that I will remember. On the first day of fifth grade, I got 130 AR points.Throughout that year, I made my way through A Series of Unfortunate Events, all of the Nancy Drew books, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Twilight saga. That year alone, I ended up with 400 AR points.

All during my sixth grade year, I would beg my mom to take me to the local library three or four times in just a week. I would check out a ridiculous number of books and fly through the pages of them in the blink of an eye. I wore my library card out by the time summer came around, and then I had even more time to find new escapes in the form of words on a page.

Throughout the years, of course, my reading habits have matured. From Suzanne Collins to John Green, it has become a daily thing for me to pick up a book and read at least 100 pages. I think reading is not only a way to further my education, but a way to escape into a world that is not my own and forget reality for a little while.

So where does that leave me? I'm a not so typical teenage girl with a slight obsession with works of fiction that I can only dream of being my own reality.