Richard Rodriguez's 'The Lonely Good Company Of Books'

In the essay, “ The Lonely Good Company of Books,” by Richard Rodriguez,he mentioned to his readers in the very beginning that he was not big reader as a child. Rodriguez writes,” I knew my mother and father could read and write in both, Spanish and English(293).” He also mentions,” their reading consisted of work manuals, prayer books, newspapers, and recipes(Rodriguez 293).” From what Rodriguez writes we can gather that reading was not used very much in his house hold. The lack of reading to the Rodriguez house was the very opposite of mine. When I was young there was a book with me wherever I went. Reading was a big deal to me as a child because it made me feel smart and I thought I was cool because of it. As Rodriguez got older he learned …show more content…
My class would go to the library once a day everyday. Back in elementary school we were able to read for fun and choose any book we wanted. Most of the time I would find a Magic Tree House book or a Goosebumps book. This was the fun type of reading I liked to do. Then I got to middle school, where my thoughts on reading started changing, soon I found out I was going to have to read for book reports. Knowing this made me feel like I couldn’t read for enjoyment because I felt as if I was forced to read through a book and I had to look for information instead of using my imagination through the story. Being made too read was to much pressure and made it unenjoyable. Rodriguez was put in a remedial reading class to help him read. The difference in the ways we had to get help reading was he was getting one on one time with the nun, in his essay he writes,”everything about our session pleased me.(209)” My book reports were the total opposite. I had to get these done with no help and it upset me, and I wasn’t pleased with them at all. My teachers thought it would help my reading by doing these book reports but I think It wasn’t doing anything but disrupting my feelings towards reading. There was nothing about book reports that pleased …show more content…
Whether it be a Goosebumps books or Mark Twain books you 'll go anywhere it leads you, but once I got into middle school and high school the books weren 't like that anymore. School books do have plenty of information in them, but they’re uninteresting to read. Not too many people want to get lost in a book about photosynthesis, they would much rather read a story about action and adventure. I do feel like reading the informational books for studies and homework did help when I would read them to finish my school work, but thats only if I could make myself read through them. Usually I would just skim through the book rather than read it word for word to get the main idea. Rodriguez mentions in this essay,” In the sixth grade I simply concluded that what gave a book its value was some major idea or theme it contained.(295)” Once I had to start reading books to get the information the books never had any value to me. Just like Rodriguez I also read books fast just to get through them. The difference was he did it for fun to show off how many books he could read. I was told to read a book for a report. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a book to just read it, but if I had to guess it has probably almost been six months. There once was a time when I was all about reading, thats just not me