My Journey To Storybooks

A blog ‘My Journey To Storybooks’ narrates a journey of standard IX student Palak Khatira

“Books are our best friends” This proverb was just nonsense to me till a few months ago.  My mother often told me to read books and I always used to put it off or procrastinate. When she forced me a lot, and it was really hard to get away, I would pick up a short book related to animals. My main motive for picking up a book like that was that I could finish it off a fast as possible.

The reason for me feeling this way was that my mother didn’t speak English and she sent me for tuition classes right from the first standard. My tuition teacher always told me to rote memorise things and made me read nothing but the syllabus. I often felt that she treated me badly and I sensed she discriminated against me. This could partly have been because she charged me lower fees than the others as she was my neighbour. Perhaps she felt that she was doing my mother and me a favour. Finally, I left her tuition classes in the fifth standard as I convinced my mother I could study by myself.

It was only last year, that is in the eighth standard that I really started my journey of reading. This was when I heard about The “Saturday Book Club” in my school. It created an interest in me that I should at least try reading a book. I made up my mind that I will read a book and I asked my school teacher to suggest a book. She gave me a book which actually turned out to be a good fit for me. That book was The Mozart Question by  Michael Morpurgo. The book was about a conversation and an interview with a Musician who was very famous but also very down to earth. That book wasn’t too long and its language was easy and accessible to me. Reading storybooks from end to end made me feel happy.

My second book was The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco.. In many ways I felt it was related to my own story of discrimination. After reading these two books, the proverb was no more nonsense for me. I read some books like The Girls who Hated Books, I believe in Unicorns, A mountain that loved a bird and some more which were somehow always related to me and I enjoyed reading them all.

Now is the time when I LOVE reading books and My Journey to Storybooks started. Books are actually my friends as they give me peace of mind, let me know some new words and help me improve my vocabulary. Now, I find it a little easier to select books. It helps me to imagine what actually the author felt when he was writing the book. This is just because of my good start, my mother’s support no doubt, and my teacher in my school. I will give my all thanks to my teacher who was the one who encouraged me to begin reading by guiding me to good books.

This was about my journey to storybooks…I feel we all have such stories in life which are related to the books and our life. What’s yours?

Palak Khatira

Std. IX Student