My Birthday Blog Post: My Reading Journey!

Hi guys! Guess what day it is? My birthday! Woo hoo! And that means a birthday book haul and the end of school… Oh my! As a special post for today, I’m going to tell you a little story about my love for reading. I’ll also give a special announcement at the end.

As an elementary school student, I was a big reader. I remember reading almost every single Magic Tree House and Hardy Boys book I could get my hands on. I kept on reading and reading and taking those AR tests to accumulate points.

AR stands for Accelerated Reading. It is a program where kids have to read books and later take quizzes on them. I read the entire Harry Potter series in 3rd to 5th grade and I could get 250 total points for all the books. Yes, the longer the book the more AR points you can get. That’s why The Order of the Phoenix would be like 50 points.

But as 4th and 5th grade progressed, I was pushed more to read higher level books. I couldn’t read books like the Hunger Games because they were so low level. I could only read 5th grade or higher, and there weren’t that many books that interested me. I couldn’t find myself reading Young Adult because nothing piqued my interest.

And that kind of ruined reading for me. It was like I was restricted with what I could read. The lowest books I could choose were Encyclopedia Brown and that was pretty much it. In middle school, I dropped the act. From reading 30 or 40 books a year, I only touched 5 to 10. Instead of reading, I would be playing video games or watching TV. (Now video games feel like a waste of time for me.)

I was stuck trying to read The Diary of Anne Frank (which I honestly didn’t like… I’m sorry for my unpopular opinion!) and being restricted to only the first book in the Among the Hidden series. I also tried to read during the summer, but it took me almost a month and a half to finish the entire 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which could now take me a week or two.

In 8th grade, I started finding books I liked. I’m going to tell you about Mr. Harris, who is a great teacher. One of the best English teachers you’ll ever find! He introduced me to The Giver (an amazing book but I don’t plan on finishing the Quartet) and Night by Elie Wiesel (very chilling). The books we read in his class were the first sticks in the fire. I also got to read 1984 on my own and I loved it so much that I even turned it into a speech team prose piece. (Sadly, I didn’t break…)

But I attribute the first “turning point” in my reading career to be the Infinity Ring series. Time travel and history? I had to read it. It was the first series that I finished, and it took me only a month to get through all the books. Yes, I admit they were short, but I couldn’t put them down. I remember traveling to World War II in a furniture store with Jennifer A. Nielsen’s Behind Enemy Lines. I did not want it to end.

I gave myself the challenge of reading the entire Maze Runner series, which took me the entire summer but it was worth. At that time, it was hard for me to read fast. Books would take me months at a time.

Soon, as I got to high school, my librarian Mrs. Mason introduced me to reading. After finishing the Kill Order I asked her some recommendations because I wanted to try reading out. The first book that made me go “Hey reading different books is fun” was Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich. Ever since, I always had a book with me.

The books that got me into Young Adult were The Islands at the End of the World duology by Austin Aslan. I remember looking at it and going “It looks so interesting but it looks too long!” At that time, I just wanted to read short books. I decided to try it out, and boy, I was blown away! I could not stop reading and reading. (Now Austin and I are friends, and you can check out his interview here!)

I finally reached the peak of my reading struggles and everything was downhill from there! In Winter of 2016, I went through a memoir phase. In Spring 2016, I got more into YA with These Gentle Wounds, Mosquitoland, and Between Shades of Gray (sadly I didn’t go to SE-YA that year and meet Ruta Sepetys… I will meet her one day!). Then I made my blog with my friend Lilly and launched our first post on May 28th, which is our blog-aversary! Then I surprised myself with reading a total of 64 books last year, which was unprecedented for me.

Now I read mainly YA with the occasional adult book. I’m super thankful for my love of reading because it has helped me connect more with the world around me, fellow readers and bloggers, and amazing authors! Books have opened up opportunities I never thought would be possible, such as this book or book festivals. 

 

The special announcement is the Summer of Authors! Throughout the summer, we will have over a dozen authors come onto the blog with amazing interviews, giveaways, and guest posts you don’t want to miss! I’m going to explain more in my blogoversary post on the 28th, but I won’t give away any secrets…

But it starts off this Monday with J. M. Sullivan, author of Alice: The Wanderland Chronicles, which just released yesterday! Go grab it if you have the chance!

So that’s it for my birthday post. I might post my haul soon, so be on the lookout! 😉

Happy Reading!

+ J.M.J.

~ Kester

(P.S. And I will be doing my best to do a quote of the week! It’s just been really hard lately, but I will try to get to one! 😉 )