Reading is one of the best, if not the best, way to improve one’s knowledge of the world and gain a more expansive perspective of the aspects within it. I can most definitely attest to the fact that I once despised reading. As soon as I would be assigned a reading assignment, I would internally sigh and dread the moment I would have to read last minute. On elementary school reading logs, I would have my parents sign off on many different books I had never even heard of until looking them up to add a different book to the list of lies. Today though, reading is something I look forward to and sometimes light up in excitement when I have an extended break to crank out a few novels in a few days. I went from avoiding reading like the plague, to reading the entire Hunger Games series within one and half days. The most predominant reason for that shift to read in the early hours of the morning, to finish another novel, is because of the classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
To Kill A Mockingbird is not by any means my favorite book of all time, or even my favorite classic story of all time, but it holds a place in my heart. It was the first book I actually came to enjoy and made me question why I hated reading so much. The answer I came up with was that I had never found a novel intriguing enough for me to be hooked long enough to grasp the message the author is trying to get across. The story is centered about a young girl named Scout, who is growing up in the deep south when racism was still torturing society. She learns through her experiences with her assumed ‘creepy’ neighbor and her father Atticus’s time defending a Black man in a case of falsely accused assault, to not judge people by the opinions others have about them. Atticus teaches Scout and, consequently, the reader about leading a life of empathy. While the sequel novel, Go Set A Watchman, throws away all that is good about Atticus Finch, suddenly turning him into a racist, To Kill A Mockingbird tastefully sets the stage for the classic trope of “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” It is such a simple message, but it turned me onto reading. It was as if I had an epiphany that reading can change one’s life. Through reading, I made friends who shared the same passion that consumed them, as soon as they opened to the first page of a novel. Through reading, I was able to exist and live in fictional worlds, when my own felt dark. Through reading, I made it through depression and anxiety. One book can change one’s life forever, it just takes one specific and good book to do the trick to open that reader’s eyes to the constantly altering world they live in.
