maandag 19 november 2012

Ready, set, READ!



The start of youth literature. I was looking forward to this lesson as the day started early, the hours seemed days before the lesson started. Because miss Edwards did not know us all we had to do an introduction, which was great for me since this wasn’t really my class. Everybody had to say their name, age and something interesting about themselves. This was a hard task, because what is interesting? You don’t want to say something irrelevant but how do you really know what to say at that moment? I went for my voluntary job. After this miss Edwards began to tell us about books and how she wasn’t really interested in them when she was young. This seems funny to me since she was teaching us this course. She began painting a picture of her childhood and I found myself getting sucked in and seeing what she saw. But this could not be true; your mind will always be stereotyping someone or something.  She started naming books she read and which ones she liked, I found myself feeling more and more like I should stop watching TV and start reading more books. I do like reading don’t  get me wrong, but reading for me is sort of a challenge. My dyslexia makes me read fairly slow and my lack of concentration makes me shift all over the book.  Apparently you have got multiple types of readers, emotional, fast, slow, people who can paint a picture while they read. I guess I am one of those readers. Whenever I read, I always get sucked in and forget that I am reading it’s almost like a movie in your head. I have the same thing when I listen to music. I start thinking about if I was performing or a clip that would fit great with the music and before I know it my train has already arrived in Arnhem and I don’t understand why I didn’t notice the train leaving Utrecht. The introduction was soon followed by the showing of the books we had to read. I had already seen the reader and ordered a couple of books that I wanted to read. We have to start with a classic, this is hard because I picked Peter Pan and I have seen the movie Hook, the Disney movie Peter Pan and the movie with Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland. So when I started with this book I can’t help but see the Disney version and it is all coming back. I also can’t help laughing because things that are being said remind me of Michael Jackson and the way South Park describes him. I am now not even a quarter in but I remember how much I like reading, I just don’t like paying for the books.   I do understand what miss Edwards said in class about finding your book, I have books that I like and have found my kind of book. Yet when I am in the library I have the hardest time finding something interesting.  I am not afraid to say that I do judge a book by its cover, if you can’t be bothered by getting a nice cover why should I start reading it.