Written as a Palanca entry in 2018 when she was 12 years old, the author shared her thoughts on how to encourage the youth to read more books. Catch some of her collections at the Libro On-the-Go of SK Odiongan as it begins visiting your place this week.
Have you ever thought of being connected to another world, not completely, but enough to watch everything happen? To, you know, become some kind of all-knowing creature in a made-up world? Believe me when I say that you can.
Back when I was a kid, I shouldn’t have been that attached to books, especially since I did not know how to read yet. But according to my parents, when I was just three years old, I once approached my dad who flinched when I told him that I wanted to know how to read, already. I, myself, was surprised when my parents told me the story. Like, who wouldn’t? Most three-year-old still want to enjoy a life where they don’t have to worry about going to school and going to work and reading books.
According to what memory my parents have of me learning how to read, teaching me wasn’t super easy. They taught me slowly and patiently so I could understand what they were teaching me, which was funny, since the definition of reading is understanding so they were practically taking things slow so that I could understand how to understand. Teaching me took almost all day and even if it was already ten o’clock that night, we still weren’t finished. But, my dad said that I didn’t complain. I just listened. Listened carefully and understood.
I do not have much memory of my three-year-old life and I don’t recall my reason for wanting to learn how to read that day any more than I could recall my first words. But, that was the start of my journey as a reader, a listener and a writer.
Looking back, though, I cannot remember my reason for learning how to read, I carried a reason behind my reasons for loving it for years.
Every time I feel the world’s cruelty against me, or a lump of hatred stuck in my heart, or even a tear falling because of what I couldn’t have done, I read a book. Whenever the hard times rock my boat, I’ll just grab a book, pull my chair towards a corner and then read. People could mistake me for a loner if not for my friends who would yank me out of my sitting room and then pull me to funny adventures I didn’t sign up for at all.
Reading served as my shield, weirdly, because, when I read a book, it was as if everything around me faded and turned to pure black. It was as if I was pulled into a void, a place of nothingness. And then, as I flipped through the pages, the nothingness would slowly be painted with colors that were so vibrant and full of life and soon after a few minutes of analyzing the introductory details provided in the book, the characters of the stories I read, would come to life.
When I read, everything people say would just be drowned by the nothingness that would later on be filled with colors. Colors that will later on draw life out of small figures which would soon act like the characters of the story. I’ve been reading so much books that I thought that the way I read was normal. Well, not until my dad asked me why I read so fast. I didn’t even realize that I read so fast until I stepped on the fifth grade.
Reading was my escape route to another universe when I feel lonely. Reading was my source of knowledge to know what other people think in a given situation. Reading was my connection to worlds that were like ours but slightly different. Reading became my favorite hobby and probably was my first hobby in the first place.
Such a shame that not many people read anymore, though. My first encounter with a not-so-much-of-a-book-fan was pretty weird because I kept asking myself, “Why don’t they like reading?” The answer that crossed my mind after I asked myself that question for the nth time was that the story might have not been good enough for them. And that was how I became determined to create my own imaginary world. A world that might someday be good enough for other people to like reading books. I was 10 back then so I can’t blame myself for being so desperate since I wrote a lot of stories that, I have to admit, are good but had poor grammar.
I was so eager to show my classmates, who weren’t really fans of reading, that reading was fun, that when my mom suggested that I let them rent my books, I couldn’t have been happier. I had a whole lot of collection of Goddess Girls and Thea Stilton series so I thought that letting my classmates borrow them wouldn’t be bad at all. My first thought about this was that I’d be able to make money by letting them rent my books at a minimal cost. I used the money to buy more books. My second thought was that my classmates might start liking reading as well. The good thing is that the second thought came true and my classmates were starting to read books more.
Then, I got myself hooked up to writing. I think of writing as a way of creating my own universe, an alternate world where I decide what had happened, what is happening and what is yet to happen. For me, writing is also a way of creating a world which somebody out there in the real world would love to see. But, I feared that the love of reading might just disappear before I had been able to make my own universe.
Once, in a discussion about the digitization of books, a thought came to my mind when my teacher said that books could be changed to something better. I didn’t know about my teacher but the meaning of better for her meant the worse for me. Reading is already an easy job. Why should we make it easier if it’s already easy?
Turns out, we really could make reading books easier with the advent of technologies. But, I consider people who make reading easier lazy because of the fact that making robots read for us is a pretty trashy idea since we’ve got eyes for looking, seeing and, not to mention, reading, as well. Has technology really made humans so lazy that they wouldn’t want to do a task as easy as reading?
And that is why I intend to show the amazing side of reading that only a few people may have taken note of. Not like I am playing some kind of joke, but my way of getting more people to want to read would be by using the strategies of advertisers. It would be as if reading is a product that I, the sales agent, am selling and I will show you the amazing things it can do and why you should try it out.
This strategy has a chance of working with children who can be easily enticed by a promise of a good time. Unless, of course, they are suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, which is ironically the phobia of long words, or they picked a book which is all about things that they would usually be afraid of. But it’s not like reading could hurt them. It can’t even bite!
In fact, reading has done a lot of things to me. It helped me learn more about grammar and vocabulary and helped me develop my knack at play of words. Reading improved my sense of imagination and took me to places I haven’t been to before.
Reading can improve our mind, knowledge, character, actions, and, believe it or not, it could actually change lives in the most unexpected ways.
Once, I read the book Percy Jackson and I was attached to the whole series. It was a humorous but exciting and thrilling novel by a guy named Rick Riordan who made the book feel so real that I almost forgot the fact that it was only fiction. By the time I finished the series, I was a bit bothered by a line in the book.
You’re not the hero.
A lump of guilt was stuck in my throat. I recall a time when I tried to fix things between two people, but, because of me acting ahead of time, everything became even worse. It felt as if the book slapped me in the face with some dose of reality. And that is why ever since, I no longer meddle in fights I shouldn’t be dealing with, because, I have realized that I don’t have the right to butt in in my friends’ fights.
I could tell you many more times where I changed myself for the better after reading books like “A Fish on a Tree” and “The Red Pyramid” but I think I’ve already made my point.
Not all people may like reading books as I do, but the only reason why most people don’t really like reading is because they don’t really do it much. So, why not try jumping to another world more than rarely?
Because, trust me when I say that reading would be fun and helpful, anytime, anywhere and in any situation.
Poochi Mindo Fetalvero is a junior high school student at PISAY MIMAROPA Campus. She wrote this essay in 2018, when she was 12 years old, as an entry to Palanca Awards in the Kabataan Essay Category on the theme ‘How will you encourage the Filipino youth to read more books?”She loves libraries, bookstores, books and drawing. Back in fifth grade, she started Poochi’s-Rent-a-Book, a book rental venture the purpose of which she mentioned above. She had written a number of unpublished novels which she showed to her closest friends for beta reading. She is saving money to have them published in the future. Amid the academically challenging atmosphere in PISAY, her parents wanted her to take a rest on weekends, but she argued that reading, writing and drawing are what made her feel relaxed.
