“Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.”- Bell Hooks. Growing up I never really enjoyed reading books. Let’s just say that it isn’t what the teachers from the small town of Forest, Louisiana, where I was from, really expected from their students. Nobody encouraged me to read so I never had the motivation to read on my own. Baseball was my life and I was involved with it everyday day of my life. I loved being out on the field, smelling the smell of the fresh cut grass and feeling the atmosphere of the stands and imagining thousands of fans cheering me on. This was distracting me from ever reading a book. Not reading much, I could never really get connected to a book, much less find one I even liked. Middle school approaching, my family was planning on moving back to Texas, and my mom told me that I was going to have to like reading if I wanted to pass in school.
At the start of my seventh grade year, the summer I moved back to Texas, my mom got an email from one of the teachers saying that every student must read a book and at the end of the six weeks, they would have to write a summary about the book. When my mom told me this, I instantly became sick to my stomach. I had felt like my stomach was by my feet and my heart replaced my stomach. I had knots in my stomach for days. I was really nervous about this certain assignment because I have never done something like this before and was never a strong reader. I also despised reading in front of other people. I was a very shy kid growing up and the last thing I wanted to do was read in front of a group of people.
After a few days of pouting and whining around the house, one night, while I was lying in bed, my dad walked into my room and told me something that I will never forget in my life. He sat on the side of my bed and looked at me for a few seconds then said to me, “Son, sometimes, you just have to do something you don’t or won’t want to do,” in his deep southern voice he continued saying, “you just need to find a good book that fits you and one that will grab your attention.” As he kissed me goodnight and I laid there in bed, I thought about the words he told me. I was asking myself things like, “What do I like? Can I even finish a book on my own? Why have I never been forced to do this before?” The next morning after sleeping and after breakfast, I decided that I was going to walk to the library to find me a book I like. After finishing my last pancake and gulping down my glass of milk, I was out the door and on my way to the library.
Walking up to the library, I felt like a lost child in the zoo. I approached the enormous stair cases in front of the library that led you to the main entrance. Walking through the giant glass doors in the front the building, it hit me that this was actually the first time I have ever been in a library. Walking through the long isles of books, smelling the fresh printed paper and seeing all of the books, I was rather overwhelmed. “How am I going to find a book in this place,” is what I asked myself. At that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a poster. Once I looked at it more and more, I noticed that it was a poster of Josh Hamilton. Under the poster, there was a small wooden table with books piled on top. When I approached the table I realized that the book was Josh Hamilton’s new book, “Beyond Belief,” a book that I couldn’t pass up renting. After picking it up and making my way back to the front desk, I probably ran into three or more people because I could not stop reading the back of the book. I was so excited about this book that all I wanted to do was to go home and start reading, and that is exactly what I did. I read for three hours straight and only stopped after that to eat dinner, but after that, I was right back upstairs reading.
While reading this this book, it didn’t feel like I was actually reading a book. The descriptions would plant
