Personal Narrative: My Hate Relationship With Reading

As a child, I had a love hate relationship with reading. I loved reading the books I picked out and I hated reading the books my mom picked out for me. My child self believed that my mom only wanted me to read the books that taught me a lesson. I only wanted to read the fun books where the cover had caught my eye at the local library. As an adult I now understand what my mom was trying to teach me about reading, however, as a child, I wanted to rebel and read what I wanted to. Now, fifteen years later, I now understand my mom wanted to show me there are more books in the world than the ones where the cover catches your eye. She taught me that sometimes you have to read outside your comfort zone to find true treasures in literature. I transitioned from Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew to Tamora Pierce’s Tortall and Circle of Magic series in childhood, to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind as a teenager and adult. My mom’s lessons on reading helped me grow as a reader and begin a love affair with the written word, no matter the genre. Growing up I was the child who wanted to played outside till the street lights came on and being honest, if I could manage it, I would have stayed out longer. My mom declared that if I wanted to play outside I had read a book of

From the Nancy Drew series I found the Tortall and Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce. The series had overlapping characters, magical worlds with never before seen powers, strong female lead characters and plenty of mystery and adventure for my pre-teen self. With every book I read, I was able to escape into a land of magic and mystery with a different turn of events every few pages. The love of mystery and adventure that Keene and Pierce instilled in me, led to reading authors such as Lois Gladys Leppard, Lois Duncan, Robert Ludlum, Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as an