Growing up I didn’t have what was considered a normal childhood. Most of my younger life was spent in and out of emergency shelters and from my earliest memory I can remember having this feeling of wanting to escape what was my reality. When I was about 10 years old I was adopted by the people I am so proud to call my mother and father today and it was my mother who was the one to introduce me to books. I can still remember the first “big” book that I ever read: “The Green Glass House.” At the time my mother was making me read it as a punishment… I have no idea what I did to illicit such a punishment but I do know that it had something to do with school. When I first started the book I saw it as an impossible feat. I thought that I would never finish it and then something amazing happened after I was about 3 or 4 chapters in. I realized that I was experiencing everything that I was reading alongside the young boy in the book. I could see the same places, hear sounds, and even sensations. I was so completely shocked. I had no idea that something that I had previously found so revolting held such an amazing secret. From that point on reading became my escape and it was magical. I traveled all over the world and even to places that didn't exist. More importantly, I was exposed to characters that had very similar lives to mine. I truly believe that books are the reason that I have made it this far in life and why I have the goals that I do now. It is because of books that I was able to see that I am capable of doing anything I put my mind to. If the character in my book can defeat deadly, supernatural monsters then it suddenly didn't seem so far-fetched for me to be able to overcome my own comparably smaller life issues. Along with being my escape reading also became my therapy. There were so many things going on in my head at once that I never knew how to approach them until I started reading. It’s kind of funny to think about how my original coping mechanism started teaching me new coping mechanisms. I went from reading almost all day and night to only a few times a week. I was still reading for hours at a time but now it was for more pleasure than escape. Books had given me a peace that I had never had in my life before. Because of books, I learned to stop dreaming about a different reality and instead, to dream of my future. I went from wanting someone elses life to being ecstatic about where mine was going. Books also eased a lot of the pain and pressure that I had collected throughout the years and because of this, I was then allowed to appreciate all of the small joys and wonders in my life.