WEEK 1

Reading was fantastic when I was a kid. When we made trips to the library I always gravitated toward the non-fiction section.  Books about airplanes, insects and space were my go to. Children's books with illustrations did not satisfy me.  The non-fiction book series Eye-Witness was my absolute favorite. Every library at least had a few editions.

A rather negative experience I had reading reading in fourth grade when we got assigned a reading textbook. It resembled a math textbook was about 2 inches thick and full of fictitious stories about talking animals and tall tales. Of course when I was bored in class I looked ahead and looked at all of the pictures for the stories in one sitting.  This made me have misconceptions for what the stories were about and made the experience less exciting.  

One of my better experiences reading was in Elementary school I was assigned Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko. The story is about the son of a police officer that happens to be stationed at Alcatraz prison in the 1930's. I was drawn into it was because the characters and the setting were based on reality.  I really feel the same way about movies as well. For example I really don't think Wes Anderson's new upcoming animated claymation movie Isle of Dogs is going to captivate me as much as his last live action movie The Grand Budapest Hotel did.  Even when there is a compelling story being told I have trouble connecting on an emotional level if the world is too far removed from our own.