Growing up in a middle class Jewish family in Chicago with a father who was intrigued by literature, Gerald had a fear of books and reading. In the article “Disliking Books,” Gerald Graff discusses his experiences growing up fearing writing and reading books to becoming a distinguished writer and an English professor. Gerald’s father was a man that adored literature, Graff states “I recall his once confining me to my room until I finished a book.” (Graff 23) His father tried a unique way of forcing Gerald in to reading books with depth. Gerald never finished those kinds of books, he could not easily relate to them, he mainly related to comics and nonfiction books. Gerald describes the usual path of boys from his neighborhood they would
