A not so book- like fantasy
At age 10, I was what one would call a bookworm, nose buried in books, spending my lunchtime in the library. I truly enjoyed the escape each book I read brought with it, a chance at escaping my 6th-grade anxiety of entering middle school. Religion has always played a huge part in my family’s culture and life. Ever since I was little, I attended church 3-4 times a week, I would sing songs, attended church classes, and followed god’s doctrine, my mom really immersed herself into Christianity and therefore that was the religion that I grew up into deeply believing.

                  As a young kid in the 6th grade, I was introduced to various literacy, different than what I had in elementary school. I was enamored by all these books, I spent most of my time sitting under and picking out books from the genre fantasy. The world of magic and battles drew me in because it was a magic world in which I could escape and pretend I was there. But at some point, my interest in books disappeared, it began when I brought my first harry potter book home. At the age of 8, I always heard from my older sisters’ friend, how they loved to read harry potter books, they would talk on and on for hours about how they were excited to read the next book. At that time, I didn’t know who harry potter was and it never really interested me, I thought those books were only for people my sister’s age, grownups.

                  A couple of months before 6th grade ended, I decided that I should take out a book from the library since I wouldn’t be able to take out books when it got close to the summer. I was skimming the Fantasy section when I heard the librarian call my name, she informed that she had these new books she wanted me to check out because she thought I would love them. I was ecstatic to see what new world I would immerse myself into. When the librarian emerged from her office, in her hands, I read the words “Harry Potter”, my whole face lit up like a lightbulb with excitement, memories of others raving about these books flooded my brain like a sudden rainstorm coming out of nowhere. I decided that I would take this book home and continue reading it. All afternoon, I read the book until it was time for dinner and I placed it in our bookshelf in the living room. The following day, church members came to our house for a visit, that day would be when my world would be turned upside down.

                       When the church members were saying goodbye, my mom’s church friend, looked at my bookshelf and called my mom over, I couldn’t hear anything they were saying but I assumed they were talking about my great collection of books. When they left, my mom looked furious, she called me over and began to ask me why I would bring such a book into a house of God, I was flabbergasted, confused as to what she was talking about. That same evening, my mom explained to me that books like Harry Potter and ones with dragons and monsters on them were books of the devil, they were evil and something I could never read. I was filled with sadness and anger, I felt ashamed as if I did something bad and god was going to punish me. I returned all my books and decided that I was no longer going to read any books that I didn’t have to.

            After that Incident in the 6th grade, it killed something within me that carried on until now, even though my family is not as religious anymore, I was still scarred from having what I loved the most turned into what I despised. Now as a 17-year-old, I have come to terms that my relationship with reading is not the same as before, but I am sure that I can and will ignite my love for fantasy and books overall again. This past summer of 2018, I have slowly begun to finish the harry potter series, and I’ve begun to start to want to read again. I am not reading tons of books or collecting them like before, but I am slowly starting, step by step.