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Role of literature in personality development
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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 …show more content…
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
In a world dominated by technology, reading novels has become dull. Instead of immersing into books, we choose to listen to Justin Bieber’s new songs and to scroll through Instagram posts. We have come to completely neglect the simple pleasures of flipping through pages and getting to finally finish a story. Sherman Alexie and Stephan King’s essays attempt to revive this interest in books that has long been lost. They remind us of the important role that reading plays in our daily lives. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” for instance, demonstrates how being literate saved the narrator from the oppressive nature of society. The author explains that even though he was capable of reading complex books at an astonishingly young
When I Glanced inside the torn cardboard box that had “Family room” I discovered one of my mom’s old book named Petals on the Wind written by V. C. Andrews. While she was putting her already read books on the empty oak bookshelf, I asked her “would I be able to have this book?” Despite that it was a book above my reading level, she generally smiled and agreed. Over the years while we sat there watching television, my eyes would wonder like an antiquarian over to the old and new novels. Having my imagination running wild and wondering what type of adventures or mysteries lay inside. My family was firmly about education, with a father that was completing up his Masters and a mother who was continually reading, they both pushed us in the same direction.
Recently publishing companies have focused efforts to release books that are intended for the large teenage audiences. However these books have unintentionally become popular with adult readers who have been drawn into these book franchises, such as The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight. The argument within the article, Adults Should Read Adult Books, focuses on the growing number of adults reading young adult fiction and the consequences of this trend. While many people would argue that the genre of a book should not dictate readership, the author of the article, Joel Stein disagrees. In his article, Stein argues that adults should be ashamed for reading a YA book. Additionally, he argues in for adult reader to gain knowledge from a
My earliest memories can be found at the hands of paperback novels. Books were my escape from the world around me. The thrill of being able to leave behind the world and it’s baggage and enter another that books provided captivated me, and left an impact on me. The emotion I experienced solely from taking a small step into another person’s story was unlike any I had felt before. I desperately wanted others to feel what I had felt, and love whatever I had become entranced by with the same passion as I did.
Ever since I was a child, I've never liked reading. Every time I was told to read, I would just sleep or do something else instead. In "A Love Affair with Books" by Bernadete Piassa tells a story about her passion for reading books. Piassa demonstrates how reading books has influenced her life. Reading her story has given me a different perspective on books. It has showed me that not only are they words written on paper, they are also feelings and expressions.
I began to read not out of entertainment but out of curiosity, for in each new book I discovered an element of real life. It is possible that I will learn more about society through literature than I ever will through personal experience. Having lived a safe, relatively sheltered life for only seventeen years, I don’t have much to offer in regards to worldly wisdom. Reading has opened doors to situations I will never encounter myself, giving me a better understanding of others and their situations. Through books, I’ve escaped from slavery, been tried for murder, and lived through the Cambodian genocide. I’ve been an immigrant, permanently disabled, and faced World War II death camps. Without books, I would be a significantly more close-minded person. My perception of the world has been more significantly impacted by the experiences I've gained through literature than those I've gained
My dad taught me that books could be my teachers, my mom taught me that our backyard could be my classroom, and my sister showed me that you could bring books into the swimming pool. I did not know it when I would spend hours in the pool reading a book that my parents weren’t encouraging it in vain, but my family life, for good reason, was centered on books. We were the planets orbiting around one sun that was the bookshelf. Little did I know that books would be the catalyst to academic success in my early life, and I owe it all to my family. Although a life with a book in your nose might seem boring, I was never bored. Living through the characters vicariously, I explored Narnia with Lucy, attended Hogwarts with Harry, and rode dragons with Eragon. Of course
Harry Potter changed the way of children’s literature in a big way. Before Harry Potter a lot children and young teens were not reading then it all changed. In 2004, in the midst of the Harry Potter phenomenon, sales of non-Potter kid lit were increasing by 2 percent a year (Romano).Before Harry Potter people thought kids didn’t have the attention span to read long books.But Harry Potter became a unstoppable force. The last four volumes of the series are all door stoppers that clock in at well over 700 pages each (Romano). And it became clear that
All I could remember on my journey to literacy was my concern over my brother and sister’s ability to read and write including solving math problems. That did not really motivate not to become literate; I was extremely playful as a child. What I am able to remember is my first day of school, I cried like a baby when my mom dropped me off. I soon began to grow out of my baby stage and school became really interesting. Even though it was not as hard as it is now, the value that pushed me to be literate was how my teacher was able to discipline students if they didn’t give the best to their education.
Before reading Harry Potter, I very rarely read for pleasure. I found reading boring, almost old fashioned. My frame of mind more readily paralleled Danny Divito in the movie Matlida, who says that “[t]here's nothing you can get from a book that you can't get from a television faster.” While my view of reading as a child could be summed up in that quote, everything changed when I was introduced to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I can remember to this day when my Dad began reading Harry Potter to me, and how I did not understand just how much this book would change me. Harry Potter and his world of wizardry became my own personal Shangri-La, my escape, my own world. Anytime I wanted, I could ascend to a world of fantasy and explore the depths of my own imagination in a way that I had never been capable of doing before. I became obsessed with the book, reading it before, during, and after sc...
In the “age of electronic entertainment”, Harry Potter novels sharply contrast by luring children away from the internet, and away from video games and the television. Children across the globe are rapidly becoming interested in reading the novels. Katherine Thompson, owner of Frugal Frigate Bookstore, declared the series a “literary phenomena.” She noted that children as young as eight-years-old will devour...
As a child, I had a love hate relationship with reading. I loved reading books I picked and I hated reading the books my mom picked. Where I wanted to read books full of mysteries and where the cover had caught my eye, my mom wanted me to read the classics such as: Little Women, The Chronicles of Narnia, Hinds Feet on High Places and Ann of Green Gables. Fifteen years later, I now understand my mom wanted to show me there is a whole new world in books just waiting to be discovered. She taught me that sometimes you have to read outside your comfort zone to find the true treasures in literature. As I grew as a reader, 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. My mom helped me grow and begin what has turned into a lifetime love affair with the written word.
Growing up I never really had a passion for reading; I never had a passion for something that is forced upon me. I felt like reading was torture throughout my years in school. But one day everything seemed to change when “To Kill a Mockingbird” was assigned reading during my sophomore year at Fordson High school in Dearborn, MI. I was not going to read the book, but I was just bored out of my mind one day and decided to pick it up. I read the back cover and it seemed interesting. I opened the book and read the first page; little did I know time flew by and I was done with the whole book. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was really interesting and stood out to me. It opened up a world I did not know about; a world of injustice.
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
There are so many more things you can do outside than inside. At the age of eight is really when I started to go outside a lot more. A motivating factor was that we moved homes. However, this house is in the woods with no neighbors on our street and just acres of fun woods around it. In the summer my brother Owen and I