Falling in Love with Reading

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When I was younger I would read all the time. I wish I could say that I first started reading because I liked to do it but that is just not the case. In elementary school there was a program in place that would reward a student for reading. After reading a book and taking a test about it, AR (Accelerated Reader) points would be given. For every 25 points, the student received a tag boasting the amount of points they have earned. If someone reached 100 or more points, they would be invited to the end of year pizza party. Needless to say, I worked really hard to get that invite. I would read anything that got me a lot of points. Short biographies on the presidents, any Magic Tree House book, the I Survived series. If the back of a cereal box would have gotten me points I would have read it. All this to say, that while I was reading a lot, I did not really absorb any of the information and therefore never really enjoyed reading. It was not until the fifth grade that I was introduced to a series that made me fall into the deep rabbit hole of book loving. The fifth grade? You might be thinking that the series was something along the lines of Harry Potter or Nancy Drew. Well, not quite. Listen, to give a hint to what the series was, I was in the fifth grade in 2012. If you think back, that was the year that a well known series was turned into a movie. Okay, if you haven't guessed, I'll tell you. It was
Left to right: Divergent, The Hunger
Games, The Maze Runner
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Should I have been reading that book in the fifth grade at 10/11 years old? No, I probably shouldn't have but it's too late to change anything now. I was not just in love with the series, I was obsessed. I loved the characters, the story was unique and it had characters around my age doing and going through something unimaginable. I wanted more, so I looked for series similar to what The Hunger Games gave me. This led me to Divergent, Percy Jackson, I am Number Four, Enders Game, The Raven Cycleand so much more. I was on a new adventure weekly and being an introverted church kid, that meant something to me. My love for reading has taken me down many paths that have allowed me to learn about how other people live and what they may be going through. Not only has reading been fun for me, but I have learned invaluable lessons. When I was first handed that series in the fifth grade, little did I know where it would lead me and what I would learn. One day I hope to be a librarian. I want to give kids access to books so that they can go on their own adventures. I was blessed and privileged to have access to books and to have people who supported my hobbies. One day, if someone needs me to be that person for them, I will be so with open arms. 

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