My reading journey.

Reading the Night Before Christmas with my parents was the first experience that I recall with books. My parents have read it to me on Christmas eve since I was a little kid. The pictures and words made me discover how books could tell amazing stories. When I was young I liked hearing stories however I didn't like to read books because I wasn't a good reader.

Reading has been a strange journey from when I was young until now, at first I disliked reading, then liked fiction, and now I read only non-fiction. Fictional books made me crave realistic stories and  realistic stories made me speculate about the past.

The very first book that I remember really liking was The Wind Singer by William Nicholson. This book felt like such a long story because it had many characters and had many settings. To me the ideas in the book were so out of this world that it was fun to imagine and paint a picture in my head of what the society was like.

After reading many fictional books for school and some for pleasure I began to get bored from the unrealistic plots and characters. At that point, around 8th grade, I began reading books that were a little more realistic. I loved the book Code Orange by Caroline Cooney, a story about a possible smallpox outbreak in present day NYC. After this stage in my reading life I began to switch to only non-fiction books.

In 9th grade I read The American Plague by Molly Crosby, I found it interesting how non-fiction books simply relayed the past and told the story of people's lives and struggles. I also read a book about adventures in some of the world's most harsh conditions. Another of my recent books was Friday Night Lights, I loved how the author described in such detail a small town in Texas. These books made reading enjoyable to me.

Presently I am reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis, another non-fiction book. My status as a reader is that I currently like reading. As of now I only hope to keep reading good books.