Rachel’s Inventory
My mother told me that as a child we always read the short story, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. She told me that this was one of my favorite stories to be read. The children’s story is about a pigeon who wants to drive the bus, but the driver continues to say no. The pigeon interacts with the readers in the dialogue to get the driver to allow him to drive the bus. It is an illustrated fiction story for children. This story made a huge impact on me as a child and myself as a future reader. My mother told me that this was my favorite story and I would always ask her to read it and act it out for me. I believe that this story began my love of stories and reading because it is one of the first stories I remember having an emotional connection to. This is a very nostalgic story for me because when I think about it, I just think of my childhood and where my love of storytelling began. I believe this story was the start of my imagination in the world of stories and advanced me as a reader because it widened my imagination.
My love of reading was at its peak when I was a sophomore in high school. That is when I began reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. The novel is about a young boy named Harry Potter who learns that he is a wizard and he goes to a school for wizards. He learns he is the Chosen One and has to save the world. This, as well as the other Harry Potter books, were very impactful to me as a reader. These novels made me fall in love with reading. When I would read these books I felt as though I was transported into the novel. I felt like I was experiencing the story with the characters. Before these books I read stories just to read them. I never really felt connected to reading and books before that. When I would read these books I began to read for fun. The Harry Potter series truly impacted me as a reader because they showed me how I do not only need to read for school. These books made me want to read for fun again.
One of my absolute favorite books that I read in high school was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is about a man named Jay Gatsby who reunites with his former love, Daisy but it leads to his eventual death. The story has themes such as the American Dream, money, and materialism. This novel impacted my reading in many ways. One of the main ways it impacted my reading was by teaching me how to read between the lines. It taught me how to really read synthetically. From this novel I have gained skills of understanding themes and reading between the lines. The book has many layers and is something that can be thought about with themes and symbols that can change the entire meaning of the story. I have learned to become a much better reader from this novel. Since this is one of my favorite novels I read, it made me more excited to read for class in the future. It got me more eager to fully read and try to comprehend the books being read. This story made a huge impact on me as a reader because it helped me really read synthetically and got me excited to read again.
The main premise of The Great Gatsby is that the true idea of the American Dream is not as attainable as believed and does not equal happiness. The controlling idea of the story is that even though the American Dream has to do with wealth, happiness does not come from wealth and even lead to the opposite. The counter idea is that as we strive to attain the American Dream you may become rich in wealth but poor in the aspect of your happiness so the American Dream loses its meaning.
In my first semester of my sophomore year of college my class read the novel Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson. This novel is about a girl named Charlotte Temple who falls in love with a man and runs away with him. She makes a bad decision as she gets pregnant and he, as well as her friends, leave her and it eventually leads to her death.. Some of the themes of this story are abandonment, betrayal, and seduction. These themes together tell the story of Charlotte as she goes from being an innocent girl to being betrayed by people she thought were close to her because of one wrong decision. This story impacted me as a reader because it taught me how to look at a story from multiple perspectives. In my class we were asked to discuss who was responsible for Charlotte’s death. We looked at that question from multiple angles as we had to find reasons for each of the characters. The story taught me how to look at a story in multiple different ways and understand those different angles. This story impacted me as a reader in many ways and it helped me become an even better reader by being able to understand the story better.
During my second semester of sophomore year of college my class read the novel The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. This novel is based on a true story and is about an African American boy named Elwood Curtis who gets sent to Nickel Academy which was like a juvenile delinquent school. The boys in the school, especially the African Americans, are severely abused verbally as well as physically. Some of the themes include trauma, racism, and hope. This novel impacted my skills as a reader because it opened my eyes to realistic novels. Usually I would love stories such as Harry Potter or romance. This opened my eyes to loving novels about real life situations such as severe racism. This was the last novel I read for the class and it was one of my favorites. When I put it down I even wanted to do research about the school Nickel Academy was based on. This novel impacted me as a reader because it gave me a greater appreciation for real life novels and novels that have more of a serious tone.
Heather’s Reflection
First grade marked the beginning of real reading for me. I picked up more words quicker than most of my classmates, and was able to read small books like the Biscuit books. Most of my class started on the same page for slowly reading those small books, but once I started reading, I couldn’t stop myself. I practiced at home, constantly reading and progressing until I read my first chapter book towards the middle of first grade. By then, I was in the library almost every other day, becoming friends with the librarian as she helped me find increasingly harder books to read. I loved to imagine myself as the main character, as I was a pretty shy kid, so imagining I was the hero of the story, or the main character everyone loved, helped me feel a little more confident. I started off reading for the experience, however, once the in class readings started, I had to learn how to read for meaning, and learned different methods involved with reading. Honestly, I loved the reading in class, but I hated the books the teachers chose. I struggled with connecting to those books, because I just wasn’t interested. These classes formed a completely different way of reading, as I learned how to actually interpret the books I read and connect the ideas to the world around me.
Going from kindergarten to primary school was a huge adjustment for me. Kindergarten in my school was overpacked, so my class and the rest of the kindergarten classes were all in trailers. Then I went to grade school, and I was in a real school, with the older grades as well. One of the first series of books I read was the Junie B. Jones series. Here was this young girl, awkward and not popular at all, telling her little stories about school, her two best friends, and the mean girls. It was easy to connect with her, since her character seemed to just tell it like it is, and was open about bullying, hard schoolwork, issues with her parents, making friends, and learning about her emotions. This is a great book series for little girls to read, especially if they are less confident about themselves and have anxiety about going to school. With this series, I was reading for the experience, to connect with the main character in some way and use advice she would give in my own life when I would get nervous about going to second grade, and then to elementary school for third grade. There were plenty of books in the series, so as I moved up in school, Junie B. Jones would be growing up as well.
“Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” was another book that helped me as a young girl while growing up. I read this book more than once, each time trying to understand it better and because I just liked how the storyline went. This is about a girl in her middle school years, who struggles to understand her religion because of her parents divided faiths. Margaret is the typical sixth grade girl, who tries to fit in with everybody else. It explains puberty for girls, and how she struggled when she ended up being a late bloomer compared to all her other friends. In one important part of the book, one of Margaret’s friends lies about starting her menstrual cycle, because they were having a competition to see who would get it first. When her friend actually got it, much later in the book, she cried when Margaret found out, saying how humiliated she was that she was so late. It’s an important message for girls that nobody’s body is the same, and there’s no reason to feel humiliated. I think this was also an important message on the topic of body shaming girls who hit puberty at young ages, and I learned from these messages that you get farther in life when you’re nice to your peers. The mean girls in the book who bullied the girls for growing earlier on were the same girls who were embarrassed that they didn’t grow up at all by the end of the book.
Angels on Earth New York encounter: “Our First Red” by Virginia Kester Smiley.
Even though this isn’t technically a book, it’s more of a short story from a small magazine that I read. The only reason I have heard of the magazine is because the author is my grandmother’s friend, and “Our First Red” is about my grandmother. My grandmother was born in New York, and her parents were from Scotland, and moved to the states as young adults where they had my grandmother and her 7 siblings, all with red hair. My grandmother became part of a program for city kids, where they can travel to a farm to spend the summer learning farm work and spending time with another family. My grandmother stayed at the farm living a completely different life from what she knew, eating fresh food and playing with so many different animals. The couple who took my grandmother in didn’t have kids, but between that summer she stayed there and the next summer she went back, they had a little girl of their own, who had slight red hair. This couple changed my nana’s life, because her family struggled to take care of her and her siblings. It’s amazing to me how families can do something so great to change a child’s life. Even though it was long before I was born, I am so grateful for that couple that was able to take care of my grandmother. My grandmother’s story made me understand that so many people struggled when coming to the United States, and even today there are still so many families struggling.
I never realized how this book impacted me until long after I read it multiple times. “I Am the Great Horse” by Katherine Roberts is the history of Alexander the Great, through the eyes of his war horse, Bucephalus. Although this is historical and not a part of the genres I typically read, I love this book. I always did pretty bad in history classes, but with this section I actually did really well in history. Even though not everything in the book was true, the big parts such as the wars were true, and because it followed a storyline, I was able to better understand the information. If I could read all my history books in the forms of stories, I think I would have done a lot better in my history classes. This book made me love this part of history because of it, and it was more interesting from a horse’s point of view, which was different to me.
Finally, one of my favorite books I have read, in my senior year of high school, I was recommended the book “The Sea of Tranquility”. A lonely boy meets this girl, who doesn’t talk at all. The story goes through their journey together of them becoming close, and how he understands her even when she doesn’t talk. After some time, he figures out that Nastya is on a journey to find her voice again. What he doesn’t know is how she stopped talking. A traumatic experience causes her to shut her voice out, along with what happened, until she starts to go through therapy. This is a traumatic experience that no girl would ever want to go through. I went through a rollercoaster of emotions with this book, even though I could not connect with her at all because of it, but I was able to understand her fear when she finally stood up to her abuser. I feel like this book is something everyone should read, to understand that PTSD can be different for everyone.
At the end of The Sea of Tranquility, Nastya goes back home to rejoin her family and do five weeks of therapy. She unexpectedly meets the person who nearly killed her in a public area, which leads to shock and finding out why he nearly killed her, him ending up going to jail, and her being able to finally let go of her past and move on. This part was climatic because we, as the reader, finally understood what happened in Nastya’s past that made her completely stop talking and making relationships with other people. We can finally see her start to heal, and see her have a happy ending with the only person she was able to become friends with in the time that she stopped talking.
Ally’s Inventory Reflection
My mother has told me since I was a child, “you were reading before you could even talk.” I was a late talker, nonetheless, but I clearly was fascinated by books and the stories they told from the moment I could comprehend what they were. Whether I could read the print on the books I’d possess, or not, I’d flip the pages and ramble incoherence telling a story to whoever would listen, even if just myself.
Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson, was the first book I can remember reading and I would simply read that book over and over and over again. Harold and the Purple Crayon introduced me to a sense of wonder that I had and felt I could relate to and also learn from. Harold was a little, four-year old boy who used his magical, purple crayon to essentially draw his wonders and create reality for himself. He’d draw himself stairs to walk upon and a moon to shine bright in the sky. He drew the adventures he’d put himself in till the very end when he’d draw himself back in his room, cozy in bed and to sleep. Four-year old me never got tired of reading about Harold’s adventures and following the pictures that accompanied them. This book I had read for the experience of the story it told; I read this book for the mimetic.
The first writer I felt important enough to really know by name was Shel Silverstein. I owned a large, black, hard-cover copy of Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends that I treasured for a longtime. Where the Sidewalk Ends was simply a collection of poems by Silverstein filled with these kind of off-the-wall, humorous poems with illustrations alongside them. Reflecting upon these readings, I find I read these for mostly the mimetic and synthetic registers. I read these poems for the enjoyable stories they told, the way they were read out loud and the structure which it’s written on the pages varying by poem.
In addition to Silverstein’s famous poetry, one of my first favorite books, which remained a favorite for a long time, was his The Giving Tree. The Giving Tree revolves around the relationship between a boy and an apple tree. The tree would give the boy anything it could to make him happy- it would give him apples to eat, shade to hide, branches to swing, etc. The story follows the relationship as the boy ages through life and continues to take what the tree continues to give him; until, the tree no longer has anything to give and is simply a stump. Nonetheless, the two sit together and are content in each other’s company. This book is well known for its thematic purposes; the meaning being interpreted variously by its readers. Reading this book as a child I always admired the caring nature of the tree. As an adult, I felt sad for the tree for giving everything it had for the boy until there was nothing left of it. The book can mean many things and its interpretation will vary depending on its audience, as with anything. This book introduced me early on to the symbolism writing can express. I believe the premise of The Giving Tree is to question how much we will give or take for the sake of others.
In the climax of the story, the tree loses all ability to give anything to the boy, as it has given him everything it had already. I think the controlling idea that wins in this climax is the idea that people can be entirely selfless or selfish to the point that there’s nothing left to give or take.
Another author I grew to appreciate as a child was Roald Dahl. My bookshelf in 2005 was overflowing with Dahl’s books- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and James and the Giant Peach specifically being the most memorable. These novels were the first I remember to completely bring me into a story with the use of words and words only. They were lengthier books than I had read before and had less illustrations as well. I had loved these books simply because they brought magic to life for me.
Fast forward to late elementary school, I was introduced to the Twilight Saga, written by Stephanie Meyer. The saga included four books: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. These books introduced me to a new realm of reading which involved more mature content than I had read before. I was introduced to new concepts in reading such as love and suspense. The saga followed a teenage girl, Bella Swan, who finds herself amongst a family of vampires and even falls in love with one. The story follows the lives of Bella, her family, and friends in a town ridden with vampires and werewolves. This story had sucked me into a fantasy world, which I read primarily for the mimetic.
In early middle school, I think I had lost my love of reading for pleasure and was only reading mostly what the school curriculum provided. S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders made its way to my desk in my seventh grade english classes and became a classic favorite of mine for a longtime. The Outsiders presents a classic rivalry between the “greasers” and the “socs.” The story follows the lives of teenager Ponyboy Curtis, his family, his friends, and how they belong and in relation to their rival gang, the socs. The greasers were looked down upon for their socioeconomic status and were considered outsiders. The struggles the boys faced as “outcasts” was something I sympathized with from the beginning to the end of this book.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was the mandatory read in high school that made an equal impact on me. My eleventh grade english teacher had told our class that this book is one most students either love or hate; I loved it. 16-year old me loved that I could relate to the angst Holden Caulfied portrayed in his coming of age story. Holden Caulfield is a 16-year old who flees to New York City in an act of rebellion after being kicked out of his prestigious school at home. Holden is rude, hypocritical, and really not a great character; though, those who found themselves identifying with Holden might have also sympathized with him, in a way (at least I did). Although, reading the book from an older perspective I find it harder and harder to sympathize with Holden. Despite having an unlikable character, like Holden Caulfield, I do think the book is excellent in its portrayal whether which way it may be read. I loved this book for the experience of life as well as the themes portrayed.
Towards the end of high school I discovered a new found love for memoirs- and for that, I can thank Sylvia Plath. I read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar when I was 16 or 17-years old and it has remained one of my favorite books to date. The Bell Jar is a semi autobiographical story paralleling Sylvia Plath’s life during the 1950’s and her ongoing struggle with mental illness. Plath’s character Esther Greenwood struggles with depressive symptoms and ends up in and out of mental institutes; during this time, Plath sheds light on the unethical treatments and general disrespect towards women by the society of the time. This novel was an eye opener and a tearjerker at the same time. I had read this book for the experience, as I had learned so much and reflected a ton as well. In addition, there were many themes that played a large role throughout the novel that are interesting to examine.
The book that most recently made its way to my favorites book shelf is Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I picked this book up when I was 18-years old and had felt so engrossed by its story and it’s complex characters. This novel tells the story of the characters, [Tereza, Tomas, Sabina, Franz,] and their entangled and complicated relationships. The insight we get into the lives of each character and their purpose creates philosophical themes throughout the novel and makes the read especially thematic; although, reading for the mimetic, the experience of these character’s lives, is equally interesting as well. This book I have read over again a few times in passing years and I continue to find myself connecting with it and its complex characters in new ways and for different reasons; I find myself understanding each character better each time I read it.
What and how I’ve grown to read is always changing as I grow as a reader. When I was younger, I read probably more than I read now and I enjoyed mostly all fiction. I would get very invested in many YA/contemporary/romance novels. I gradually began to gravitate to more non fiction novels as I’ve gotten older as I found reading about real experiences to be so compelling. When I read, I just about always read for the experience, or the mimetic, of a book, but additionally, I just about always focus on the themes or larger messages as well, being the thematic. I notice that I do not typically read for synthetic registers as much, although I do enjoy doing so when I do! As a reader, it seems I mainly am reading for a combination of mimetic and thematic, typically both- with the two going hand in hand.
A Little Bookish 