Life Story of Books

In Dierk Bentley’s song “I Hold On,” he talks about the moment he had with his father in his truck or the meaning behind his guitar. Like Dierk Bentley, we infuse memories into objects of importance to us. We hold on to pictures, beds, toys, cars, and maybe even tickets or wristbands given to us by dear friends or family. Everything we have has a memory attached to it, giving people a desire to experience more in the world creating new memories to enjoy by themselves or with another person. Books are that unique way for me to express myself and allow me to go on a journey no one else but I can experience. From the moment I picked up my very first book, I’ve been lost in many worlds facing challenges around every corner as I escaped from this reality.

Ever since I opened my first book in kindergarten, Clifford the Big Red Dog, I have read for hours when I wanted to get away. Reading has helped in advancing my mind’s eye, my creativity, with every bit of new information and adventure. My first love is books and they will always hold sway over my heart. The power of words on a page can give feelings of euphoria and great sadness.

Hearing different conversations from students my age about books, many of them do not seem to understand there is more to them then the front cover. There are a few students out there though, like me, who understand that a book is much more than just paper and binding. Finding the right book is about more than just looking at the front or back of the book. Inside it holds magic. The words fly at you showing a world unlike your own, giving an escape from reality. When I was a kid, I would walk into the library and walk around running my hands across different bindings reading the titles. Pulling books down reading a few pages inside seeing if it was interesting or not. One book I pulled down, The Lightning Thief, helped me through some tough times with my family while my parents were fighting.

Through books I found that everyone was different. That I am different just like everyone else and those who bully me are afraid to accept it. One book that I read in the past few years was Fire by Kristin Cashore and the main character Fire is a monster at least to the other characters around her. She was different from everyone else and people hated her because the beauty of her hair, skin, eyes, everything about her mesmerized them. It terrified them with how they felt towards her. I found that this is how bullies act. They are jealous and angry with how someone’s life may be better than their own, and they want that person to feel how they do. Fire dealt with this by understanding her bullies and those who wished harm on her and she would not fight back or be angry with them. She let the words and actions against her flow right off her shoulders. The book taught me that everyone is facing their own battle and just want someone to understand what they’re going through as well.

The words of an author have saved many people’s lives, one example would be Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Through their writing, people have been able to connect with others across the globe. I know that if books had never entered my life, I would not be where I am today. Lessons have been taught through writings and storytelling to allow people to understand the past as well as implement that knowledge in the present. With books people have experienced love, happiness, pain, and heartache all in one and learned a little something along the way.

It is through the words of authors that I have lasted this long in a world filled with madness. It’s allowed me to grow with a mind sharper than most and a vocabulary only a few seem to understand. Books enable me to use the power of rhetoric precisely when I speak to the public. Books have given me a mind as imaginative as a child’s mind, yet even more complex and mystifying, so that even I cannot comprehend the magnitude of thought that I have within me. Books are an art piece, a skill set, most people envy to have the ability to write so concisely.

With the thought that books are an artwork, I have learned how to write words to share my own stories and lessons with everyone else in this world. That is how books have become my educational artifact and I’ll always be grateful to have this skill which is needed in the world.