Winter Vacation

Once every year, I go out to Milwaukee, WI over break. I always look forward to coming out here to see my Dad's side of the family, for some many reasons. One, is that I can totally let go from everything in my life when I come out here. Every morning, I'm welcomed with waffles and Aunt Jamima syrup. A huge television, and a comfy couch. The Wii game system lets me forget about all my troubles, and the close by movie theatre, and candy shops do aswell. Though, as you can imagine, there's no time to do the thing that really allows you to let go and forget about all your troubles, better then any of the regualr activities I do at my cousin's house. Read. There's no time. I'm always being called over to play Rock Band, watch a football game, log on to Facebook on this beautiful computer.

Another thing I do once a year, is go near the Berkshires, to a small area called Hillsdale. Here, is one of my mother's best friend's country house. Here, there is a T.V, but one that does not have cable. Here, are laptops, but most are being used by our parents. So here, I have an excellent reason to read, and so much more time to do so. So I have to compare, because I am now in Wisonsin, not really reading as much as I could, and in a couple weeks, my family and I might be going out to the 'Hillsdale House,' where I plan on reading 600 books in the short week we are there.

Well, now that I'm done with entry, and this observation, I think I'll go read.

Excuses

I love to find excuses to read. That way I feel safe. That everyone around me knows not to bother me. To let me be. Because if I get a good excuse, I can read for hours.

On Sunday, I unleashed one of my many qualities of a klutz, and fell at the ice skating rink in Prospect Park. My mom not in sight, I tried limping and skating at the same time which didn't work at all. I crawled over to a bench, not making eye contact with the dad I knew from somewhere or other. I blinked back the tears, and finally saw my mom's familiar brown coat in the distance. I dragged myself to the entrance gate a desperately waved and called her name. She looked over, but it was my six year old sister who reached me first.

"What happened??" She questioned. I just looked at her, I didn't have the strength to answer her. My mom came to me then and lifted me off my feet to carry me to a bench. I started crying at once. While telling my mom everything that happened, I realized that I was the only one in the family who had never severely injured herself. I didn't know what it felt like to be hurt badly somewhere in the body. We drove home, and I was carried to my room where I was greeted with a bag of ice and a pillow to elevate me leg.

My dad came into the room, and sat down next to me. Just the simple strokes of his fingers made me feel better. He leaned over to reach for my book, and a smile came across my face. I read for so long, that I could feel my knee thawing off from the ice, not necessarily the effect my parents were looking for from it. But I simply didn't care. In what seemed like ten minutes, I had gone from page one to page 36.

I always look for excuses to read, and sometimes I don't at all. Sometimes it's good enough to just sit down and read. Sometimes all you need is a great book, an ice pack, and a sprained knee.

Making Connections

I think that every author writes a book for a different reason. All of the their reasons are different, but I like to think that there's one thing that many authors share with each other: that their reader walks away with something they learned.

Maybe it's a joke, or a cry, an angry feeling, or a happy feeling. But most of all, maybe it's to make a connection between the book and the reader.

I know how special I feel when I read a book and feel connected to a character. Or when I find a book on a book shelf in a book store and know I want to read it automatically because the title connects to me. Those connections give me pride in a book. It's one thing to just be able to jump into the book, but another to become a character who shares something in common with you.

Over the summer, I played the game "Jax" at camp with my friends, and when I arrived home, I played all the time as well. When one of my friends came over near the end of summer vacation, we played Jax and something came up in which we decided to make a song out of one of the tricks you could do with them. The trick was to place two Jax on one side of the floor, and eight on the other. You picked up the two Jax while saying "two men," then you took your index finger and circled the eight and said, "went around the World." and then you pick up the eight while saying, "in eighty days." That was about four months ago, and I still haven't forgotten the song.

Last Sunday, I was in a bookstore with my dad, and while roaming the bookshelves, saw a book that was titled, "Around the World in Eighty Days." I immediately grabbed the book, and read the first two chapters without, surprisingly, even bothering to yank out my cell phone and call my friend up to tell her what had just happened to me.

I'm enjoying this book so much, even more then I would have if I had just found it out of curiosity on the bookshelf. And all I needed to enjoy it so much was to remember that small connection-- that song we wrote while playing Jax--and use it throughout the book.

Who knew that it was possible to make a connection with a book before you even knew it existed? Now I know that anything is possible when it comes to a book, and all you have to do is jump in and enjoy it.

Entry Block

This week's reading entry was very hard for me. For some reason, I couldn't find a topic in my book that seemed good for putting into an entry. I wonder if it's because I've already read Twilight, or I already wrote an entry on it. But that's when it hit me. I could write an entry about how hard this week was for me. A perfectly acceptable topic for my entry. While on the train on Sunday, I was thinking of a couple ways that I could connect this writer's block to the story Twilight.

It seems that Stephanie Meyer, never has a dull moment in Twilight. I feel that even though I don't even know if she had writer's block while writing the book, which she probably did, she never lets anyone know. Stephanie Meyer knows what the reader wants. She knows the parts where she needs to put extra description because she knows that we will want extra description. If she gets to a kind of boring topic, she knows how to cover it up. And last, if she gets to a part where we're on the edge of our seat, she knows how to add dialogue or description so that she can give us more, or make us want to read more by giving less.

I admire this skill of Stephanie Meyer, and as a growing and developing writer, I hope to gain this skill. I believe that along with enjoying the book, learning a skill or two from the author is very important.

Rereading

I love to reread books. I believe that reading means so many different things, but mostly I think it means learning something new every time you read a book. My favorite book in the whole world is "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" By Judy Blume. That book changed my life. I'll never forget discovering it on my mother's book shelf, and me being so curious about it. I'll never forget how when she was finished explaining it to me, I knew that that book was the one. The one book that would be by my side forever. But when I asked my mom if I could read it, she said I was too young. I was 7. I longed to open the pages, those delicate pages that I knew would be the perfect fit. Then in third grade, my class went to our school library. I noticed the book on the shelf. I looked around to see if anyone was looking, and took the book to the counter where I would check it out. The first thing the librarian said to me when she saw that book was, "You need to put that book back, you aren't ready for it." It seemed like everyone was against me. What was so bad about that book? Finally, the summer going into fourth grade, my mom took the book out of her purse. It was a newer copy, a copy that she had bought for me as an end of third grade gift. She knew I was ready. I opened the soft pages that were now mine. I longed to march straight up to that librarian and show her I was ready. I finished the book in a few short days, and when I finished it, I was tempted to flip back to the beginning and read it again. It's been about 4 years since I read "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." And I would say that I have read it about twice a year since then. Every time I read it, I learn something new. I notice something new. This year when I read it though, it was very special. I was, for the first time, older then Margaret. More mature, a totally different person. I thought of Margaret looking up to me after all those years of me looking up to her.

Now, I am currently reading "Twilight" By Stephanie Meyer. I read this book in the beginning of 6th grade, and I was absolutely obsessed. I was obsessed with the perfect Edward and how when Edward kissed Bella I thought he was kissing me. I went out of my head, the posters of him on my wall became what looked like wallpaper. I almost became so obsessed that I wasn't paying attention to the story, more so how I would "faint" when I saw the name "Edward" on the pages. Now that I have recovered from this insane obsession it seems like a totally different book. I remember how much I hated when I saw the name "Jacob" on the page. But now that I've taken a break from hating him as a character; I want to see more of him. How it almost seemed like I wanted to skip the pages where he showed up. But now I want him to show up. And now I'm not so excited to see Edward because I'm tired of obsessing over him. But who knows, maybe the next time I reread "Twilight" I will want to see Edward and dread seeing the word Jacob" printed on the page. I look forward to rereading books, not just reading them and not just "Twilight" or "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." I wonder what I will read, or reread next.