I would be lying if I said I have loved to read my entire life. I actually did not enjoy reading until middle school. I remember it clearly. I was sitting at a scratched-up desk in my seventh-grade classroom when I fell in love with reading. I realized that by reading I could leave my world and disconnect for a little while. For a teenager who was constantly stressed and doubting everything, it felt like I had just found a lifeline.
Reading has so many wonderful outcomes, but being able to have an escape was what drew me in. Books transported me to worlds that didn’t exist but felt just as real. One of the first books that did this was City of Bones from Cassandra Clare’s series The Mortal Instruments. Her series gave me somewhere to go to when I found myself in a classroom where a teacher failed to teach, a family friend’s home when I didn’t speak to anyone or my bedroom when my thoughts were so loud I couldn’t hear any of them. This series was one of the many that helped me leave behind my fears and concentrate on the wonderful adventures of other characters who I grew to admire.
This escape kept me picking up books for years. Until I found myself picking up a memoir and I found out reading does so much more than offer a temporary escape.
The memoir was Night by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor. I have always found the Holocaust a topic I liked to read about in history class. I believe it’s because I find it hard to comprehend why anyone would do such horrible things. I also believe it’s important to remind ourselves that history is not fiction. I didn’t think twice about picking up the book. There’s something different about reading this information from a book with a first-person point of view than through a textbook—it offers so much more insight than a cold and distant textbook ever could.
What students read in class is warped and doesn’t show the overall picture, which is upsetting. When you read about how a young boy let his dying father’s cries for him go unanswered because he was afraid of the soldiers, it’s hard to not shake with emotion. These are the books that offer the closest thing to experiencing the real thing. It offers emotions that a textbook can’t.
Reading is a wonderful thing. I only mentioned a few of it’s pros, but reading has so much more to offer. The knowledge alone that one can gain from reading is reason enough to do it. I’m not saying one should go and read a book a day. I believe that if people gave reading a chance, they’d learn to appreciate the wonderful things it has to offer.
