I am a bibliophile, which is just a fancy way of saying that I am a bookworm. My whole life, well ever since I could read, I have spent it with my head in a book. Reading everything from ‘Catcher in the Rye’, by J.D. Salinger, and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, by Harper Lee, all the way to ‘Poet X’, by Elizaneth Acevedo, and ‘Fangirl’, by Rainbow Rowell. Reading has become a part of everyday life for me.  

Sometimes when people think of reading they think of homework. When I think about reading I think about the endless possibilities that could happen in that book. I don’t have the money to travel the world, but when it is a good book I don’t need the money. I can see it from a different perspective. It is a new adventure waiting to happen, each one a bit different from the next. And just at the tip of my finger is a new world waiting to be explored. Sometimes it’s full of magic, witches and wizards trying to bring back magic, other times they are full of myths and legends, like the books about Greek Gods and Goddesses and their children. 

A good book will teach you a good lesson, and a bad book will help you realize what makes a good book good. There are some things that are just too important to not learn and sometimes it can be hard to find the right person to teach that lesson, or it can be hard finding the right words to ask that question. And sometimes you just feel too small and think that you shouldn’t ask anything at all, but then I read something somewhere and things change. What once was an ocean roaring with questions is now a stream leading me to an answer. 

Reading can lead to many different things. It can open up worlds of possibilities, and show you doors that you would have never thought to be possible. Reading has shown me that things are not always so black and white, that they can sometimes be different colors. And that sometimes you have to look at things differently in order to see what is right in front of you, like the doors I thought were close. They were never close to begin with, that is just the way I chose to see it. 

Just like books are different, the characters inside them are different too. Sure some books may have similar plots, but part of the reason why they are so unique is because of their characters. Similar to how some people are similar and their characteristics are what makes them different. The characters in a book teach you how there are two sides to every story, and that the villain in someone’s story could be the hero in their own story. Different characters do different things, and they show you a different perspective to life and its mysteries. 

Opening up a new book is like opening up the pages to someone’s life. You read through and learn about a character and about what makes them different. Part of the reason as to why I read so much is in hope that I will be able to understand people a little bit better, and at the same time understand myself a bit better. Books have a way of showing you the unique ways that people are and the way that they show emotions. Sometimes it is easiest to learn from someone in a book rather than to go straight into something with an unknown.

There are many books in the world, and they all come in various different shapes and sizes. Just like people do. Some are big and have so many pages that it’s a bit intimidating, while others are small and lighthearted. Some books are hard to understand and take a while to read, while others are simplistic and tell you things straight. And then there’s the books are a mixture of everything and you just don’t know what to expect from them. That is the way that I have always looked at books, and in a way people too. Reading so many books has shown me that just like there are different types of books, there are different types of people too.

Books have become a part of everyone’s life at some point or another, whether it was for fun or as an assignment. Most of us have probably read a book, and from there on we decided whether we liked it or not. I choose to like it.