I was destined for a life rotating around an axis of literature. Like a quick tumble down an endless rabbit hole, it was inescapable. 

When I was young, I spent every day at the public library with my nose glued to any sort of book. To this day all of my local librarians know me by name. In the first grade, I took after my favorite people and started my own library in the basement of my house. I named it after my great-grandfather, a Greek immigrant, and the originator of my surname. It was called The Athanasius Pantazopoulos Memorial Library, a certified mouthful. On a visit to the more accredited library, I was gifted a stack of due date papers for the inside of the covers of my books, and one roll of receipt paper. I spent every day of the winter of 2009 marking every book with a custom stamp that read “Property of Athanasius Pantazopoulos Memorial Library”. Then organizing them all with my own makeshift version of the Dewey Decimal System. 

The following summer I started a neighborhood newspaper called “Kids Page”. The staff consisted of my sister, my two best neighbors, and me (and of course my mother as our typist because none of us had any idea how to use a computer). Our cover story for our first issue was a thrilling interview with my neighbor down the street who worked as a librarian in our town. My article was followed closely by one about how a vicious fisher cat was loose in the neighborhood, but, in my eyes, nothing could be more exciting than knowing a real librarian. We peddled the newspapers to every house within a one-block radius and donated the 15-dollar profit to the animal shelter. 

While I have evolved deeply as a writer and reader since my days on the Kids Page staff and as a librarian at the APML, I never lost the spark of excitement that literature brings to me. No matter what happens, reading, writing, and lots and lots of time in the library are a certainty for the rest of my life. 

Something about “words, words, words” became boring, boring, boring along the way. If I had to pinpoint the moment that I fell out of love with reading, it would have to be seventh grade.

My middle school had two higher-learning – or advanced – options. There was an option for students who excelled in STEM, and another for students who excelled in humanities. Instead of taking two electives, I opted for more reading and enrolled in the humanities course. My elementary school self was squealing with joy, as I had raked my way through all of Rick Riordan’s catalog one weekend and read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire four times through. I had always been fond of reading, and I hoped that this class would only excel me further into my reading frenzy and introduce me to new books.

We read books like The Outsiders and The Phantom of the Opera, both of which continued to pique my reading interest. I would walk out of the classroom feeling refreshed and like I had learned something new. Everyone in the class was like-minded about literature, excited to learn and share their findings with the rest of the class. Or maybe they really just had a soft spot for Ponyboy. Later in the same day, I would attend regular classes, which felt off for me. Nobody seemed to care about reading as I had.

It began to feel like a chore instead of something of pure enjoyment. School made it feel like reading was a punishment, and that has been something that I have attempted to flush from my system since middle school. The most difficult part about growing up has been the ebbs and flows of my relationship with reading. I suppose that’s why I enjoy writing more recently.

Over the past few thousand years, literature has served two very important functions: to entertain and to convey information.

As we enter the 21st century, these two functions still exist, but we can find a better way. Games, movies, TV shows, etc. can bring us more direct and intense sensory stimulation, thus giving us greater pleasure. The Internet is far more efficient in transmitting information than traditional literature. So does this mean that literature has lost its value? I don’t think so.

Firstly, literature can improve our personal qualities. Reading a long work is a long process, you need patience and perseverance, also at some point to overcome their laziness. Even short works or poems can make you feel the beauty of different genres. In addition, no matter what type of work you read, you need a strong empathic ability to understand the feelings of the author or the main character, and when you gradually have this ability, you will be able to make more and more friends in your real life and gain their respect.

Literature also allows us to understand the world in a more systematic way. A news article, a message, a blog …… The delivery of information in these ways is extremely efficient, but if you only read these things every day, then in the long run your mind is likely to be a mess because they are fragmented and it’s hard for you to make connections between them (Some of the information is even contradictory to each other). But a work of literature, complete and continuous reflects a certain era, a person’s journey, a big event …… When you know enough, you can naturally draw a net in your head, and then you may have your own way of knowing the world.