It was in 4th grade when my mom had a surprise for me as I got back from school. Was it the new PlayStation, a new RC car, or a new pair of shoes? To my disappointment, it was books. Of all things…books. At this time, all I knew of books were textbooks and picture books, neither of which were particularly appealing to me. The packaging for this set of books however was quite unusual, it was a brightly colored box and had forty thin comic books in it. These books were captivating because of their wide array of colors and oddly shaped characters, and as a boy who was 9 years old, I couldn’t have asked for anything more in books. Despite these alluring characteristics, I held off on reading these comics for a considerable amount of time. Until one summer day, when it was too hot to play outside and my Nintendo ran out of battery. I sat on my bed, scanning my room trying to find something to cure me of my boredom. My sight fell on those books. So I decided to read the first few pages of the book, and I was fascinated. Right then, I sat down and started reading the first book. The book was focused on the protagonist, Asterix, and his sidekick (whose name I can’t remember), who was an astonishingly large character and loved boar. Each different book seemed to have a different focus, similar to crime TV shows where each episode is focused on one perpetrator/crime. I remember in a book that Asterix was in Egypt with Cleopatra, and when he confronted Caesar in Rome. These books took me all around the world, experiencing so many adventures and gaining much knowledge while I was simply sitting on a couch. I thought of reading these books as a way to simply enter a new world. A world of peak imagination where no real-world laws or rules seemed to apply. My means of entertainment slowly shifted from watching unrealistic kids’ shows to an unrealistic comic book, but reading a book made me feel like my time was better spent. I started to cultivate the idea of reading for entertainment, and maybe even passion. I had found a new path that I was set to explore. I ended up reading to the point where I lost track of time, finishing multiple books in a sitting. This is something that, up until this point, I had never done. The feeling was new and strange, but I was hooked. In a matter of days, I ended up finishing the entire series. I felt greatly accomplished, a boy who could barely sit for half an hour to read, spent hours reading these books. As I look back at these books, it wasn’t simply the bright colors that engaged me, it was the story and the way I envisioned myself as one of the characters. These books helped me realize that reading is not boring and plain and that many books lead to exciting adventures in a completely new world, fiction or nonfiction. These books hold great value in my life, especially on my path to fostering a passion for reading. As I had found tranquility when I needed it most.
Earliest Reading Memory
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