Emma Duncan
English 101
5 October 2018
My Mother Changed my “Rising Standard of Literacy”
I was twelve years old, during a windy day sometime in the fall of 2012, so cloudy and cold that it actually might have been winter. Around me there were parents with their children, teenagers hoping for a free cinch bag or water bottle, and the noise of the vendors from the Kla-Ha-Ya days parade in my hometown of Snohomish. I had just gotten my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and sequentially been asked to join my school’s performance team as a member. We had performed in the parade, doing our routine with shoes on for the first time since we were without a mat to use. But now, the parade was over, and I was just waiting for my mom to pick me up and take me home so that I could change out of my uniform. I sat on a bench in Snohomish with a book in my hand. It was tattered and ancient, with a black cover and red title. On that black cover, a scaly green hand snakes out towards a small paper boat. “It” by Stephen King was the first “grown-up” book I had read and finished, after the Harry Potter series I finished at 11. It was a difficult read, a more mature text that I was used to. The multiple points of view where King traveled back and forth in time were confusing if I wasn’t paying very close attention, and the storyline was graphic and unnerving, not exactly what I was used to. It took me two years to finally read it from start to end. I always lost interest after Adrian was killed and then had to start all over again after putting it down for a week or so. But, as I sat outside in the wind and read my book, which by most standards is too dark and twisty for a twelve-year-old girl, “It” settled in my mind as one of the most profound books I have ever read even to this day. Six years later, it is still my favorite book, joined by other Stephen King works. The book I held had belonged to my mother, who had read it as a high school student, and her collection of horror novels was still in our house, waiting for me. When she finally picked me up, we talked for the entire twenty-minute car ride about “It.” Not in the way I was used to talking about something I’ve read, with the author’s purpose and the theme and the metaphors. We talked about my favorite parts, she asked me about things she couldn’t remember in all the time that had passed since her last time opening that book. My parents were well aware of my passion and talent for reading, but this was the first time that she and I had read the same book and enjoyed it just as much. She helped extend my love for reading with a whole new genre, a collection of books that was just waiting in my house for me to open them.