Amanda Weires
Science Teacher
Science Teacher
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was the first book I read in high school that I liked. I hated reading. I hated slow moving books, and I hated that I read incredibly slowly. I could never keep up with page requirements in high school English, and by my senior year, English teachers had sucked the joy completely out of reading for me. My Aunt Helga was reading HP3 to her girls, and they all liked the book a lot. So, each night at bedtime, I borrowed her book, and read a chapter to my four year old brother before bed. When we left her house, she lent us the first Harry Potter to start from the beginning. I read a chapter a night to my brother, but during the day I would sneak into a quiet corner, away from my brother, and read ahead. I couldn't wait to see what happened! During the rest of my senior year in high school, I read HP1, HP2, and HP3 to my brother, and over the summer before I left for college, I read Ender's Game to him. These are the only four books I read in high school that I didn't hate. HP3 is still my favorite of the series, for many reasons: nostalgia, gratitude, but mostly because the story is good enough to be a standalone book, it doesn't need the other 6 HP books to be interesting or captivating, and it isn't a very long book, so it isn't intimidating. |
Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card Ender's Game was the first book I read that made me mourn for a character, to really feel loyalty and hope and betrayal as if it were my own emotion. It was the first book I really got into and saw the world through another person's eyes. This is the great joy and relief of books, plays, and movies. Most are just entertainment, you can think about something else besides your own reality for a short time. You can take your responsibilities off and set them aside for an hour. Rare and magnificent are the ones that actually let you experience the world as another person, to wear another person's reality for a time. When this happens, a little piece of that character becomes a part of you, forever. Ender was the first character that stuck with me, and when I'm tired of my own, I still occasionally wear his reality. |