A Literacy Savior

I never questioned what exactly taught me to read. After pondering it, I thought, was it my mother’s encouragement and the ways she supported me that influenced my literacy? I thought of the books I read that pushed and pulled me further into the world of literacy, where would I be without them? My literary story has many ups and downs, but luckily, in the end, I turned out to be an avid reader with a heart for books.

Remembering back to my childhood, my parents were always supportive of reading. My parents took us, my older brother and I, on frequent library trips, onto the bookmobile, and would read us books before bed. Growing up in a military household, my dad was often deployed, leaving my mom alone at home with two kids to keep entertained for months at a time. Luckily, one great form of entertainment was books. We often read at the dinner table during a meal or even during bath time. My brother and I are just 15 months apart in age; a blessing to my mother because we enjoyed the same books at the same time and were often the others only play mates.

Reading aloud to kids is important and was essential in my literacy flourishing. Reading, just like other forms of learning must first be fun for a child to engage and pursue. After establishing the enjoyable aspect of reading I was then supported in my growth by the bookmobile and library. The bookmobile gave me responsibility that as a child everyone yearns for. With my little blue bag I jumped on the big, yellow, book filled bus and began my search for that week’s nightly reads. Doing this gave me ownership of my own literacy and it began to matter to me.

Most of my literary sponsors growing up were supportive, like my mom, but some had a negative effect on me. As Deborah Brandt writes in “Sponsors of Literacy” not all sponsors are positive (56). The teachers that labelled me as “gifted” were often the ones to blame for my view of literacy as lackluster later in life. Formal education was a monumental stepping stone in my literary life. I was now being tested and compared to other kids. Once I was marked, early on, as a “gifted” student, reading became more like a chore rather than for fun. We were expected to read certain books on a specific time frame then write about them. This is when my literacy became a problem. The book reports I was assigned were often done without even reading the book and many of the summaries I turned in were found on the internet. Cliffnote, a book summarizing app, was a frequently used tool to get through assignments.

My relationship with books and reading was over by middle school, I thought reading was a thing of the past. I envied book worms as I was out and about, busy as a 6th grader could be. I always loved reading, but I never had the time to enjoy it anymore; sports, homework, and friends had taken over. By the time I was a freshman in high school I hadn’t read a full book in over three years. One night, sifting through old movies in our entertainment center I found my soon to be literary savior. The cover featured four boys and read, Stand By Me. I was so intrigued  that we ended up watching it that night for family movie night. By the end of the movie, I was in love with the story. I read the movie cover front to back; when I read, “Based on the novella The Body by Stephen King”, I knew what I was going to do the next day. My mom drove me to Bowlby Public Library in the morning where I, after a lot of searching, accepted defeat and left without my beloved book. Luckily my mom, as I said before, was an intense supporter of my literacy and ordered it on Amazon. Within a few days it arrived. The original curiosity and awe of it had worn off, but my mom had cared enough to order it so I might as well try. By the second page, I couldn’t put it down. From the opening sentence to the last page, I was hooked. Stephen King saved my literary life. Strangely enough, The Body also affected my literacy negatively; after reading it I couldn’t thoroughly enjoy another book. No other book could compare, but I continued reading, searching for another life changing text to dive into.

I became obsessed with Stephen King and this particular style of writing. I watched documentaries and wrote papers about him. Learning about his writing style changed mine, he wrote about memories and events he experienced, which made his stories more engaging. Noticing how engulfed I became in his writing, I began to model my stories like his, finding and pointing out the humor in everyday life. This style and my love and interest in it is well explained by Murray’s “All Writing Is Autobiography”, in which he states that everyone writes from their past and memories, not everything is made up (66). The two author’s, King and Murray, approach to writing catches people’s attention because they write about honest and relatable topics. These stories often create reminiscent and nostalgic feelings for the readers. For example, King wrote describing four boys in The Body sitting around a campfire conversing and debating about T.V. shows; pondering the many life questions every twelve-year-old boy thinks about. Later in an interview King explains that he got the idea from memories of doing that exact thing with his boyhood friends. He guesses that everyone his age has those memories and wondered the same things.

There were many things that impacted me in my literacy and still do. Books, movies, family members, teachers, and places all had an impact on my literary story. Stephen King and the movie, Stand By Me, based on his short story, The Body, were very unlikely sponsors of literacy for a fifteen-year-old girl, yet I look back and see the impact they made on me. Literacy is a gift that many take for granted. When you have a minute, think about your story. Is it like mine? What’s the first thing you think of when someone says “reading”? Finally mapping and writing out my journey has made me realize how important it is, how hard I worked to achieve it, and how much support I received along the way. 

Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing About Writing: A College Reader, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014, pp. 43-64.

Murray, Donald M. “All Writing Is Autobiography.” Writing About Writing: A College Reader, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014, pp. 65-75.