Secretly Becoming Literate

When I was young, I often boasted about how much I "hated" reading. Even to this day, I may complain about having to read. However, despite these feelings of hate towards an essential life skill in our society, I still managed to become literate. How did this happen? When in school, we had library scheduled into our week. We had to take out an independent book to read. In addition, my mother often took my sister and me to the public library during school breaks such a summer or holiday breaks to take out books and VHS tapes. Originally, the agreement was that we were only allowed to take out a movie if we took out books as well that soon became a rule we wouldn't want to break. At first, I'd just grab books that seemed easy, but my mother was just letting me gain an interest for learning. Once that happened, it was too late. I secretly loved to read. For classes in high school and even middle school this wasn't always the case, but reading for pleasure was definitely something that I now enjoyed.  My teachers, one particularly, knew exactly how to fuel this new love. Around middle school age, I attend my favorite teacher's summer program and she mentioned a book that she liked and thought I would enjoy. It was a book by Agatha Christie called And Then There Were None. From there on, I knew I loved reading, it just had to be the right book.