Speaking as an employee of a bookstore, I don’t get why people are determined to maintain the reputation of a person who doesn’t read. Why is it such a terrible thing to read? It definitely improves your vocabulary, and is it really so bad to sound intelligent at times? Reading is like watching a movie but having it be more detailed, more engaging and less expensive. You can always go to the library and have thousands of options of free books. It’s a wonderful system.

Many movies and TV shows are based off of books, and the book usually includes more information and detail about the story than the filmed adaptation. Take “Harry Potter” for example. In the movie, they cut out extremely interesting characters such as Peeves and Teddy Lupin. In the book, you get way more background information and that helps you piece together the story.

Sitting down to read makes your brain “transport” you to a different place while not moving at all. “I read because it takes me to a different world,” senior Kennedy Graeser said. “It’s like traveling, while sitting in your own room.” You can always pick up a book to get a glimpse to a different universe, or even our own. I’m probably never going to go to Amsterdam to speak with an author, but if I read “The Fault in Our Stars”, I can follow the story of people who do. Books engage our imagination and open up our mind to endless possibilities. They show us perspective and allow us to embark on adventures with no danger to ourselves.

I think a lot of the reason people claim they hate reading is that we are forced to read in some of our classes. Being handed a book and told to read it really turns off the desire to actually gain something from it. I used to hate English class just because I didn’t want to be told what to read. I wouldn’t read my assigned books so I could read what I wanted to. This drastically lowered both my grade and caused me to write off reading as “boring” and “dumb” (I was in 6th grade when I decided this so I wasn’t really too educated on effective adjectives).

The thing to realize is that reading isn’t a punishment. English teachers mean well when they assign readings, but obviously not everybody is going to really enjoy it. When I was in Mr. Ed Walker’s Power of Persuasion class, we read “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and I loved it. I bought myself a copy of the book and kept my packet with active reading on it. But I noticed that a lot of my classmates didn’t enjoy it that much. So maybe “Jekyll and Hyde” isn’t your book, but that doesn’t mean that all books are uninteresting. When we read “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, I was not enthused to pick up the packet (it was actually a choice of a couple different texts that we could read for this project and for some reason, my friend and I chose the hardest one). But I got through it (painfully) and I still enjoy picking up new books and exploring the story line in those.

It’s all about finding the right book that suits your interests. For instance, I read a lot of science books about exploring what we know about the universe. Now, if you aren’t a complete nerd like me, that would be the most boring thing to enter your life.

I don’t really understand those people who claim they “don’t read”. There is always an interesting book out there that they would be entertained by. To quote the great author, J.K. Rowling, “If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” There is a book for nearly every single topic you can imagine. And if you’re into the book, it doesn’t feel like work to get through it.