Literacy Narrative

     As a reader, my reading habits have slowly evolved since the time of elementary school. At a young age, my interest in reading was almost nonexistent. Even though I would participate in reading programs, I read usually only picture books and short stories. Occasionally I would read a few novels, but the full impact of reading was never fully experienced or appreciated until I read "White Fang" when I was in the last years of elementary school. I picked up that book as an award from finishing a reading program. The public library offered me one free book to keep. Looking through the boxes, I was attracted to the image of the white majestic wolf-dog on the cover of the book. Commencing on the first and ending on the last page, I fell in love with this animal.  From that reading experience, I learned how to enjoy to read. I learned how to infuse myself into the story and visualize the plot from the character's viewpoint. The practice was effortless and enjoyable. When I was finished reading a story, I no longer seemed stoic afterwards. There was life in these books that I cherished and wanted to experience for myself. Yet throughout the later years, I would still only keep one or two books off to the side to read. Other than those one or two books, I only read the school assigned books. The books outside of school were usually popular fiction and romance. After some time, I grew tired of the same material being tossed into my head. Dropped off at Barnes and Nobles and encouraged by my mother to find a book to read so that I would make some use of the summer, I headed towards unknown territory -the classic Literature section. Instead of reading the usual popular vampire and overly done romance novels, I tried for something new, and this section of the store offered areas of literature I was not aware of before. The unknown territory has become my favorite territory in my reading life. Initially I was a seldom reader, and then an occasional reader. From the beginning of 2011 and especially this new year, I hope to read a substantial amount of books in a broad range of different genres.