“Hey Mom, what do sea animals do when they are swimming through the ocean?” I asked my mom. “I don’t know let’s find out. Didn’t your Granny get you some of those Suzanne Tate books for your birthday, the ones about all of the sea animals?” she “Oh, yeah.” I responded, while skipping down the hall toward my room. I kept my collection of every Suzanne Tate Nature series books ever made in my little book shelf there. Sometimes I would go to my room and read them myself, but most of the time I read them with my Granny.
The Nature Series books have always been my favorite books. The reason I liked them so much is that they were given to me by my Granny, and I rarely saw her when I was little. She lives in a small town about an hour from my house. Another reason I loved the books so much was because they were based off of real sea creatures, not
made up stories. Granny and I would sit in her den (the room we call the living room) and read the books together. These books really influenced me, teaching me about ocean pollution and about sea animals. They actually ended up being so influential, that, when I was in seventh grade, I started my own organization that aimed to protect the oceans and beaches of the world. Although this organization has stopped running now, I am still very passionate about keeping the oceans clean.As I continued to grow, my interests changed. Being a strong Christian, I was interested in the Chronicles of Narnia. In elementary school, I had a very high reading level, and was able to understand books like the Chronicles that other kids I knew were not able to. So, by fifth grade, I had read all of the Narnia books. They were my entire life as I grew up. When I was in first grade, I moved into my current house. When we got there, me and my younger brother discovered that the backyard was full of huge woods (or, at least, that’s what we thought at the time). So, we created our own Narnia. I was one of the King’s, of course, being older. We would constantly play in them, usually until our mom forced us inside the house. So, the Narnia books were a huge influence in my life as an elementary student.
Once I got to middle school, my love of reading started to fade away. It was mainly because I had a new AIG Language Arts teacher. She made us read a book and do a huge project on it every two weeks. We had to do sixteen books each year! Then, in eighth grade, we had to do projects called “book talks” and a few book projects. In our “book talks”, we had to answer questions asked by other classmates and give a detailed summary of the book. Along with the “talks” we had to fill out a huge chart of info about the book, with another detailed summary. These activities are really what pushed my love of reading towards more of a hate.
So, this brings us back to where I am now. I like to read sometimes, but most of the time I just don’t feel like it. I want to get back to reading sometimes. I think the problems I have are that I don’t make enough time for myself to read, or I stop reading a book because it is boring. I can solve the problems by leaving enough time in my day to pick out a good book that I will really enjoy and read it. I could also start finding better places to read, like the woods I used to play in.
By the end of this semester, I want to be back to reading at least thirty minutes every day. I need to start focusing more on what I want to read and start taking actions.
Images obtained from:
"Chronicles of Narnia Review." Raging Badger! Web. 09 Feb. 2011.
Nags Head Art. Suzanne Tate's Nature Series. Web. 09 Feb. 2011.
