Chopping the lines down.

Do you remember reading in elementary school? Kinder, first, and second.

This is a cat.

The cat can jump.

The cat can crawl.

Oh no! The cat finds a mouse.

The mouse ran away.

Read. Rinse. Repeat.

Stories were easy but god were they boring. Who cares how to read when this is what you are forced to look at?

For me, it changed in third grade. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. It was the first book I ever read that transported me somewhere new. All of a sudden I wasn't reading about a cat but I was a boy deserted and alone. I got lost on the pages and I couldn't find a way to safety. My heart raced, my eyes widened. Was I going to die?

Reading is so much more than looking at the words on the page. But it is about finding a connection. Fearing for your life, losing your love, igniting something inside of you, you never even dreamed of before.

Reading can transport you somewhere knew, think thoughts you never had and create emotions you never would have felt.

The first book that did that was a happy one. I thought they all would be from then on. They weren't. On those manila pages, I lost a father, a brother, a best friend, a lover. I ran away and was a thief, I was the savior and the villian. The saint and the poor. I was the child, the parent, and so much more. I lived a thousand lives in those stories and I have a thousand more to live.

But none opened my eyes as much as the first book ever did. The words transformed from lines on a page to a world I never knew existed.