Esquenazi 1

Aline Esquenazi
Professor Dearing
ENGL 106:742
21 September 2014
Learning to read, reading to learn
I was always a shy kid. Running around playing soccer or tag never really appealed to
me. I was (and still am) unbelievably clumsy, and years of all kinds of dance and sports after
school could never fix that. It didnt take too long to realize my strengths lay somewhere other
than the athletic department. Maybe I had to learn I wasnt going to run marathons for a living,
but theres one thing Ive always known: I loved to read. I honestly cant remember when my
passion for books began, but it has been a constant in my life. I was the first one to read texts
aloud in school without stuttering, one of the few to read the assigned books in middle school,
and the only one to complete the optional readings in high school. The people responsible for
this interest were my parents, and I dont think Ill ever be able to thank my parents enough for
being caring, supporting and encouraging every time. They taught me to read, often and well,
until it became second nature, and I couldnt be seen going anywhere without a book under my
arm.
Being good at something encouraged me to explore it further, so reading was a great part
of my childhood. During recess, I dodged soccer, ping pong and even tennis balls, sitting on the
benches outside, reading whatever I could get my hands on. The other kids probably made fun of
me for not talking to anyone or not participating in their games. I wouldnt know. I didnt listen.
I was somewhere else, living amazing adventures.

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Up until a point, my parents bought me books pretty much whenever I asked for them. If
I read through them too fast, I got untrusting looks, followed by a stream of questions about the
book to make sure Id really read it all. I never missed a single one. When school eventually got
around to introducing reading comprehension questions, I didnt have a problem with them.
I had a neighbor who was a year older than me. At the age we were at (about 6 years old)
that meant everything she did was automatically cool. When her parents bought her the (then)
new Harry Potter book, thats what I wanted to read. My mom said I was too young for it, and
that my friend hadnt even read it (that was true, but I did not believe someone could have a book
and not read it). So, even though I repeatedly asked for it, I did not get a Harry Potter book for
my seventh birthday.
But I progressed fast, and soon I was reading at a faster pace than the trips to the
bookstore could keep up with. Finally, against my shy nature and several protests, my mom
dragged me to the school library, where I was completely positive I would find nothing that
would interest me. Cartoons had utterly convinced me libraries were boring places, and librarians
scary old ladies who would shush you if you sneezed too loud. Understandably, I wasnt exactly
eager to go there, so my mom had to come very close to actually dragging me. She introduced
me to the librarian (who was around her age, about 5 feet tall, and did not shush me even once),
explained the situation, and made me look around. I asked if the library had several books I
wanted to read, and, to my surprise, it had all of them. I went back home that afternoon with a
smile on my face, a book under my arm, and a new favorite place.
A couple of years later, to my surprise, my parents gave me a Hanukkah gift they were
positive I would love: the Harry Potter book they thought I was finally ready for. It would have
been the best gift in the world, if only they hadnt gotten me the second one by mistake. I dont

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exactly remember how or why, but we never returned it, and I read the Harry Potter books in a
completely shuffled order. That, however, did not stop me from completely falling in love with
those books, and reading and rereading them became part of my routine until I could quote it by
heart.
Library aside, the new school was much better. I made many friends who had similar
interests, and I didnt have to isolate myself to read anymore my new friends didnt think that
made me weird. In fact, we actually had very long talks about the books we were reading. It felt
good that people liked the same things as I did, or at least respected that I had different interests.
In one of those long talks about Harry Potter, the favorite book of all eleven-year-olds, we came
around to the fact of how bad the translations were. Id never actually thought about that, but
when I did, there was some very bad phrasing and wording that made the text very confusing.
We kept on talking about how we missed some major plot clues because of the text, and I
realized I was actually getting a poorer experience with the translations. So I made one of the
most important decisions Ive ever made: I decided to read the last book of the series, still to be
released, in its original English version. After all, I thought, how hard could it be? Id been
taking English classes since kindergarten, and was already twelve years old. Plus, this way I
wouldnt have to wait a couple more months for the translation, and would read it as soon as it
was released.
It turned out it was, indeed, a very hard thing to do. My English classes were too basic,
and I was not prepared for the very British language of that book. I hadnt even considered, at
that point, that there were differences between British and the American language. More than
that, neither my grammar nor my vocabulary were up to understanding that book. The first
chapter opens with a very detailed description of a garden, including the unforgettable and mind-

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boggling phrase low-hanging brambles. I was told to underline words I didnt know to look up
in a dictionary, and to try to translate the ones I thought I knew. That resulted in a solid pencilgray blur over the entire first page, and a brave but fruitless translation of tall to short.
I stopped underlining things. I quickly found out my best friends were online translation
tools, which gave me the translation instantly and allowed me to keep on reading without the
hassle of a physical dictionary. I also asked my English teacher for the occasional piece of advice
when I was offline, such as how to pronounce handkerchief, and what on earth did that long,
cumbersome word mean.
I finished the 700-something page book in a bit more than a week. My parents did not
believe it, and opened the book on random pages to ask me the traditional questions and make
sure I understood what Id read. Again, I didnt miss a single one.
That book was followed by several other works in English the three last books of the
Inheritance Cycle, all of the Artemis Fowls and many, many more. Every book brought new
words disheveled, windowsill, debris, tandem but, more importantly than that, it gave me an
understanding of how English worked. I had no idea why, but I knew you should say If I were
you and not If I was you, as well as several other grammar topics English classes wouldnt
cover for a long time.
I consider the graduation of my self-taught course to be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I
had already dealt with British English, but that was an extremely descriptive 1950s book, and I
soon found myself running to that same teacher to ask what in the world thy and thou meant.
That mix of American, British and even Irish books caused quite a bit of a hassle in my
spelling. In my programming classes, for example, more than once I got frustrated that a program

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wouldn`t work, when all I had done wrong was spell colour and hope the computer would
understand. It, much to my frustration, didnt.
My reading skills were already invaluable for the culture and the power they granted me.
Writing is a very personal activity, and letting someone else read your work is one of the most
complete forms of trust. Books are a window into other peoples perspective of the world. I
learned to listen to different ideas and point of view, if only because I couldnt argue with a
book. I learned how to make my arguments effective and consistent, because I could not help but
try to argue with the books anyway. All those points of view and different scenarios from my
daily routine made me realize how much diversity there is, and how valuable each bit of it can
be. I embraced that, because even if my beloved dragon stories could not be true, the ones from
the far east, or the wild west, or the dangerous deserts were. That my little private places actually
existed was a delightfully comforting piece of knowledge.
When I decided to go to an American university, books quite literally saved me. My
English skills were better than I ever expected. The only teachers Id had were Tolkien, Rowling
and their colleagues. My reward for all my efforts was the wonderful opportunity to come here
Purdue University. As my parents said, Id not succeeded because I studied hard for the tests
(which I did), but rather because Id been unknowingly preparing for it all my life. Looking back
on it, it seems as if I knew what was to come, or as, just like in the tales I loved so much, it was
always meant to be so.