WRD (2)

Jean 1

D​ège Jean
Nancy LaFever
WRD 103
13 September 2018

No Love for Books
As a child, I grew up when computer and technologies were just beginning to make
their advancements. The more advancements that occured my passion for reading began to
slowly disintegrate. I have always wanted to get back into reading for pleasure again. I
know there are books out there that would I would love to read but with technology these
days I sometimes do not even look. Having little to no internet in my household is what
introduced me to reading in the first place. Having an ample amount of technology
surrounding me makes it harder for me to go look for a book when there are simple apps
you can download on your phone to occupy time. A teammate and I were planning on not
using social media for a week and I could not even do it. I was sitting in her living room
watching tv while on snapchat and she said “Dege, it is only Monday you mean to tell me
you could not even do it for one day” jokingly I said “Well what else am I going to do when
I am bored?” Even though I was joking I was also serious. I did not know what else to do
without social media in my free time. I did not have a book to read and did not want to
find one to read either.
Growing up, I was not the child that enjoyed having bedtime stories read to me. I would
read a story to my mother. I enjoyed reading to my mother and I read a lot better than other
children in my age group. I remember sitting in my bed with her beside me still in her work

Jean 2

clothes smelling like vanilla from the perfume she put on that morning. I was wrapped in my
disney princess pink covers and began reading. My mother being very tired attempted to sleep. I
remember one night saying “Mom! Wake up” her response always being “Nadege I am not
sleeping my eyes are just closed. Keep reading I’m listening.”I would still continue, knowing she
was not listening but I still enjoyed reading out loud. When reading out loud, I always envisioned
I was a teacher reading to my group of students in class.

Starting school was a bittersweet moment. I hated every subject except reading. In first
grade, at the time, I believed my teacher was ridiculing me. We would have to get to every
subject before she finally took the entire class to the corner of the room to a red and yellow rug
that always smelled like it had just been freshly vacuumed by a broken vacuum.​ As a class we
were always so excited to the read out loud portion of class. I never forget the pop noise
coming for the books as all the air from the book was being pushed as the entire class
closed there book at the same time.​ Soon after first grade started, my favorite author, Judy
Blume, was introduced to me. I believed she was a spectualuar author and I read just about every
novel she wrote at the time. My teacher first introduced me to her when she read the novel S​ uper
Fudge, a​ nd that book was the holy grail of all books to me. The book is 166 pages so it took her
several days to completely read the novel to us. I was so intrigued with the novel that I became
good at every subject I hated to have an ample amount of time to complete the novel in class. I
was always excited to see what Fudge would do next. So much in fact that I finally begged my
mother to purchase the book for me so I could read it for as long as I wanted to and never had to
wait until the next day to find out what was going to occur. Once I finished the book and the
class did not, I became the trouble maker. I did not want to hear it again, so I made noise. ​From

Jean 3

tapping my fingernails making thud noises, to attempting to make Indian howls with my
mouth. I always wanted to be heard in class.​ I tried distracting other students with
conversation, and even wanted to be the teacher and read to other students. The teacher hated it
and even called my parents once or twice. Shortly after the first and second grade I began to
slowly lose my passion for reading.

Once I entered the third grade, reading became a job more than a hobby. We had to read
for AR points. AR stood for accelerated reading, you would have to read books for points and
each student would need a certain amount of points at the end of each quarter. Different books
had a different amount of points and that is when I slowly started to lose my love for reading. ​As
a child, you are always excited to get on the computer in class. But you always knew when a
child wanted to rush off the computer. The fast clicks the mouse made as a child hurried to
log off was a for sure sign of failing and not wanting others to see their score.​ Books I loved
were not worth a lot of points, resulting in having to choose between the books with fewer
amount of points that I wanted to read, and a book I did not like for more points. I thought AR
points were ridiculous because it was meant to keep children reading but the books children
typically loved were worth little to no points. Not to mention my teacher never wanted you to
challenge yourself. I remember choosing the book that I believed would be interesting to read
and was worth a lot of points and my teacher told me to put it back because it was “too high for
my reading level.” I remember approaching her waving the blue book in her face. She swiftly
picked up the book, turned the novel over, and said “It’s a 5th grade reading level. put it back.” I
tried to explain my case by promising her I could read the novel and why should allow me to
check the novel out of the library. A very stern teacher in her mid 30’s, kneeled so we would be

Jean 4

at eye level and said, “It’s at a 5th grade level, put it back.” Being the hot headed child I was I
slammed the book back on the shelf. Resulting in a phone call home. My mother came home
from work later that night and said “Have you lost your mind? You have done all this over a
book?” but it was about more than a book, it was about my teacher not believing in my reading
ability. I finally was able to check the book out one day when the class went to the library with a
substitute teacher. I read the book and passed the AR test. Feeling very accomplished, I went to
rub it in the teachers face, “See I told you I could do it, I am not your average 3rd grader” I
always said I was never the average kid because of my reading and being a very tall child. She
was not amused in the slightest manner, only thing she said was “Make sure to return the book to
the library before you misplace it.” Ever since, I knew to not care what a teacher said and I knew
my limits and how much I could challenge myself.

I continued to read not for enjoyment and also for AR points. It was not until my second
year of junior high that I completely lost my love for it. It was in my literature class and we had
to read the novel​ The Giver b​ y Lois Lowry. That was the first novel I recalled where each page
was ever lasting and you had to put too much thought into what the author wanted me to know.
After reading the same page twelve times and having the teacher explain what the author was
inferring, the story was very good, but it just took too much effort to actually enjoy the novel.
That was the moment when I realized that reading a page once was not going to make me
understand it. From then on, every author made you make inferences, some left me with
cliffhangers to make your own ending, and some just wrote too many pages and were too boring.
After that, I no longer read for enjoyment, I felt like reading was now a job. I read one book
afterward for my own entertainment and it was the novel T​ he Fault in our Stars​ by John Green.

Jean 5

High school was even worse. Every novel was boring to me except ​To Kill A Mockingbird
because no one can hate that novel, but any other book was hard to read. One book I recall
reading that I hated the most was the novel ​Pride and Prejudice​ by Jane Austen. Jane Austen had
a strange use for vocabulary, she used words that either made you have to go back and look at
what it meant or words that I thought did not connect and just confused myself as a reader. I will
never forget the novel because I dreaded opening that book everyday. I never forgot holding the
432 paged book with its black cover. I was obviously not the first to ever use the book. The book
was curving into a u shaped from people prior constantly curling the book and being bent in the
wrong directions in several kids book bags. My teacher knew the novel was a tough read for the
entire class so we began reading it together in class. After she broke down each page, it became
easier to understand. But reading by myself was not even a thought.

It was not until my senior year when I read ​Beloved ​by Toni Morrison. I was finally able
to read a novel, interpret what the author wanted the reader to know, all while finding the story
interesting. I was answering the questions in class and even began volunteering to read aloud
again. I remember my teacher saying , “You must really like this book because this is the most
you’ve volunteered all year.” and she was right, I did enjoy the novel. Toni Morrison created a
novel that was out of the box. Sometimes it did not always make sense to me, but it was
different from what I have read in the past.

I have always wanted to get back into reading for pleasure again. I know there are books
out there that would I would love to read but with technology these days I sometimes do not even
look. Having little to no internet in my household is what introduced me to reading in the first

Jean 6

place. Having an ample amount of technology surrounding me makes it harder for me to go look
for a book when there are simple apps I could download on my phone to occupy time.

There was a continuous build for the reason my passion for reading to sadly fade.
Authors got too complicated, it became more a job and no longer a hobby, and technologies
made a huge advancement. Even though I have mainly been around technology all my life,
I can agree with elders when they say technology is great but has a ruined a lot of simple
things with today's youth. We are so dependent on our technology that many bookstores
are closing and now children are only reading when the teacher assigns it for a grade.
Staring into a book all day never gave me a eye strain headache like a phone does but yet
and still I refuse to go back to my old ways. If technology was a drug, we would all be
addicted.