Narrative Final

Micah Nelson

English 101- 5:30

Dr. Sonia Begert

11 October 2015

You can benefit greatly from reading books. I grew up around books, but I never shared the same love for books like my mom, who I would see reading in almost every situation, whether it was in the car, before bed, or even when we would take trips to the beach. I would catch her reading almost everywhere. My mom would always try to get me excited about books by telling me how much I can learn from them, and how I can get so much more out of a book than a movie. But being a stubborn kid, I payed no attention. I just didn't ever get excited about books, which made it really hard for me to want to read them. It also made it really hard for me to understand what I was reading. I hated reading so much that I would have rather done math over reading any day, and math was and is one of my weakest points. I really didn't ever read a book unless it was assigned to me by my teacher, and even then I just skimmed over the pages, and winged it when it came to the chapter quizzes by asking someone next to me for the answers. That was until freshman year of high school when I received “ The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as a Christmas present from my mom.

It was Christmas morning. I arose bright and early. I had gotten little sleep because you know what it's like Christmas eve, all you can think about is opening presents in the morning. All I could imagine was the tree illuminating the room, with sparkling green, and red presents under it. I ran down stairs only to see that nobody was even awake yet. Then glancing at the clock on the stove I realized it was only 5:30am. I made my way back up to bed and attempted to go back to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. I stayed in bed for a good three hours until I could smell, and hear the bacon sizzling on the stove, and at that time I knew my parents were up. I made my way back down the stairs for a second time, gave my parents hugs, a “Merry Christmas”, and then quickly made my way to the tree and started opening presents. I opened all my presents, Xbox 360, snowboard, new basketball, all the things I wanted at the time. I got to the last present, a small rectangular present, with little weight. Clearly a book from mom that I'm going to thank her for, and then later shove under my bed with the many other books i've received over the years. Sure enough it was a book, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

Being half black I’ve always been interested in my heritage. I had always heard stories about Malcolm X, and the influence he has had on African American history. So when I received this book for Christmas I was particularly interested. One gloomy day when absolutely nothing was going on, I decided to start reading the book. I started reading the book downstairs around dinnertime. My mom had food cooking. The aroma of chicken soup filled the air, and made my mouth salivate. The clinking of pots and pans also made it hard for me to focus. I found myself stuck on dinner, and not the book. I decided that I needed to find peace and quiet, so I made my way up to my room. I began to read. At first I wasn’t too excited, but kept reading anyway. By the time I was done with chapter one I had no idea what was going on, or who the heck “el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz”  was. Puzzled, I restarted the book again and found that in order to comprehend what I was reading it was crucial to slow down and go over every paragraph. This became a valuable lesson in future reading. Slowly I got more and more into the book, and found that I had completely forgotten about dinner. I went downstairs and ate, and quickly made my way back to my room to continue reading. I became so deeply absorbed by this book that I didn’t stop reading until about  1:00am on a school night. I brought the book with me every morning and read it on the bus ride to and from school. I finished this book in about five days. But most importantly I took away great amounts of knowledge from it. I loved how within just a couple of pages I could take away more new knowledge than I ever have by watching a two hour video.

After reading this book I not only gained a lot of information on an important piece of history, but an interest in books. I wanted to read more, and to learn more. I started actually reading the books we were assigned in class, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and much more. The difference was, this time I actually understood what we were reading because I actually had an interest in them. I was also getting good grades on the quizzes and book tests, which brought my reading, and comprehension confidence up even more.

My new found love for books is actually more of a love for knowledge. I heard this quote in a YouTube commercial one day, “the more you learn, the more you earn”, and I captured these words in my brain as something very important to hold on to. I try to read as much as possible in hopes that it will guide, and provide me with the proper incite I’ll need in the near, and not so near future. Some of this knowledge that I have obtained has even become handy in everyday life situations. For example, one of my friends didn’t know who Frederick Douglass was, and I went on to explain that he was a man who came from slavery and arose to be one of the leading African American figures of the 19th century. I knew this because I had read “The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.” Clearly one of the main reasons to read books, is to become a more knowledgeable person.

Books have become a great way for me to escape my everyday stress. Being a senior in high school isn’t easy. I have things due everyday, I have places to be on time, I have to pay for my gas, and I have to keep up in my studies. All of these things build up in my mind of the course of the day, and leave me usually pretty stressed out. Even though I’m doing all I can to alleviate the stress, by completing assignments early, always giving myself adequate time to be somewhere, and writing down assignments, and due dates, I still find myself thinking about the next day and how with a new day comes new responsibilities. But, one thing I have found that helps me out at the end of a long day is losing myself in a good book. For the moment I just forget it all, and can take time just to relax and focus on other important matters in my life.

I look back at it now and realize how little I would know if it wasn't for my love of books. And thanks to my mom, and the great book she gave me for Christmas I found that books can be interesting, you just have to find the right ones. Books, and the knowledge you can obtain from them have played a huge role in my life, and I don't know where I would be without them.