Would you believe that in the 2nd grade, I was declared behind on reading and writing? Would you believe the reason for that was because I was put in Spanish Immersion after Kinder? Because of this turn of events, I was taken out of my core class, which is where half the day was spent learning English and the second half was in Spanish and went to the library with an adult where they would read with me 1:1 in English.
For some reason, this 1:1 tutoring instilled in me two statements I believed were true about myself until the summer between 5th and 6th grade: 1) I was not a good reader, and 2) It wasn’t good for me to be proficient in Spanish, I was making a mistake by understanding it better than English. Granted, as an adult, I know both of those statements to be false, but as a child, that is what I thought about myself.
The belief that I wasn’t a good reader didn’t change until, for some reason, I felt motivated by my 5th grade Social Studies teacher to accept her summer reading challenge. She was the 5th and 6th grade social studies teacher, so we would have her again the next year, and this was how she was able to follow up on our challenge. Looking back, I am still not sure what sparked the confidence that I could do it. Maybe I had seen my friends talking about the books they were reading, and I wished I could join in on the conversation with them.
Maybe I simply wanted to be better at reading and to find stories that I would enjoy. I think it was watching the first two Harry Potter movies and then hearing they were books that lit something in me, and I wanted to believe I could exceed my teacher’s summer reading challenge. Or maybe it was also because I had discovered the origins of my name, Shannara, but that’s a story for another time.
Here's a hint:
So, I did exactly that. I checked out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and from then on, I was hooked. I became a reading enthusiast. I quickly jumped ahead of my grade's reading level, and by 7th grade, I was testing at a high school reading level. I was reading so often that I got in trouble for reading and ignoring my other responsibilities. I found true escapism in fantasy books, and I was obsessed.
That obsession turned into a desire to write my own stories. In 7th grade, I started to handwrite a Lord of the Rings-esque story. If I read it today, I’m sure I would think it was terrible. But everyone has to start somewhere, don’t they? That love of writing delved into taking Creative Writing courses for electives in Junior High and again my senior year in High School.
In High School and after graduation, I didn’t read as much. I’d go through bursts of reading and then wouldn’t read. I had a major life event happen a few months before my 16th birthday that rocked my world and left it off-kilter with a lot of cracks that needed to be mended.
Recently, my love for reading has been rekindled, and I am devouring literature at an insane rate for someone with as much on their plate as I do. What sparked your love for reading and writing?
Interested in seeing what I am up to daily and what I am currently reading? Follow me over on Instagram @shannara.novels.
Until next time,
Ciao!
