I turned the last page,
Let the final words sink in.
I couldn’t believe that it was over,
After all of these years.
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I flipped back a few pages,
I thought how I felt
Now that I knew what drove
Those characters I loved.
I understood why he loved her,
Why she fought to survive.
I knew now that good won
And that evil lost in the end.
Or did it really?
Who was good and
Who was evil?
I read the last words again.
I thought about it harder.
Good and evil didn’t equal
Black and white.
That made me feel empty.
But there was nothing left,
No more lines and
Midnight release parties.
What could fill the void?
I went online and chatted
With other fans in forums.
It was fun for a time,
Being back in that fantasy world.
Still, there was nothing
That could quite match
The feeling of devouring
A book in days.
Shutting out the world,
Reading consuming me.
The action unfolded in imagination,
I saw a movie in my mind.
I reached for other books,
But they were slow to amuse me.
I tried to find other uses for my time,
But nothing matched my love for reading.
Mom suggested that I volunteer,
Share my passion with younger kids.
So I volunteered for story time
At my local library.
The kids, they loved the books I chose.
They giggled and gasped and raised their hands.
They asked questions I never thought to ask
And I found myself acting like a teacher.
It was the kids who first taught me to
Think about what we all could do
To share the stories in our heads
With other people reading in chairs and beds.
“Why did the rabbit do that?” asked one.
“Why didn’t he take one look and run?
That scary wolf could be beat
If he had just outrun him on swift feet!”
The kids, they all had their own ideas of how
The rabbit should have teamed up with a cow
And scared the wolf away by spraying milk
Or covering him with baby soft silk.
Every thought they had made me laugh,
Like when they thought the cow’s calf
Should wear sunglasses on his eyes
And wear thick shorts over his small thighs.
As every story time drew to its end,
I put down the books and we started a new trend.
We picked up pens, pencils and paper, too
And wrote down what we thought the characters should do.
The stories the kids came up with would often improve
On stale stories that had been published after adults approve.
They were wild and silly, but they made me smile.
I started thinking that they were budding authors after a while.
And that’s when I decided we could start from scratch.
We could make up our own stories—a great big batch.
So after we read a story or two, we’d sit down before a PC
And on a brand new tale we would together agree.
Our first story was about a boy named Steve and a girl named Beth,
They were both teased and bullied by an older boy named Seth.
They came up with all sorts of silly and fun ways to get Seth away,
Like putting a monkey in his locker and filling his shoes with hay.
And at the end, as silly as the kids wanted the story to be,
We made Beth and Steve make friends with Seth, you see.
And then I had the kids sit down with crayons, markers and paint
To draw the pictures of the kids getting along and Seth turned into a saint.
Things were going great, I thought had finally found
The answer to the problem that had turned my thoughts round and round.
These kids were creative, with our book they had proven that true.
But what happened next made me question what I should then do.
The librarian wandered over to the story time room the day
We had been drawing the monkey, the locker, the shoes and the hay.
She asked what on earth was going on, she wanted to know
What made me think I was running a wild circus show.
I had forgotten that my job was to read to each kid,
To show them the pictures, that was all that I did
At first when I read, when the librarian thought
She could trust me not to be creative and to stir the pot.
But now we were making a mess and breaking a cardinal rule.
We were being so loud in the library and it wasn’t a school.
And besides, had the parents said that I could let their kids play
With colors that made messes on the clothes for which parents did pay?
I didn’t know what to say, she had silenced my tongue fully,
I didn’t think I was teaching these kids to emulate a bully
By writing the story about Seth, Steve, Beth and the monkey
But perhaps I wasn’t supposed to encourage the kids to be so funky.
The kids were scared, the librarian was so strict and mean.
I wondered why she ranted and raved and acted like the queen.
I wish she had pulled me aside and told me when we were alone.
Or she had looked up my number and told me over the phone.
I said I was sorry, that I should have cleared
What I had wanted to do, but I had feared
That the kids would be bored if never did I ask
How they would have written, how they’d have completed the task.
“Teacher’s a lot of fun,” spoke one girl aloud.
I felt my chest swell, I really felt proud.
“We like writing stories,” said a boy named Nate.
I have to admit, the kids made me feel great.
The parents had heard the ruckus, they were all sitting nearby.
“What’s going on?” They wanted to know why
The librarian had sucked the room of all fun.
Why she had put an end to our laughter and said we were done.
The librarian made sure each parent said it was okay
For me to continue story time in this crazy way.
Most said it was fine, they thought it was funny
When the kids made up stories about cows and a bunny.
The librarian let it continue for the rest of the morning
But once the kids all left, she gave me a warning
To clear any such changes to the syllabus ahead
Of my volunteer hours, and before I actually read.
She was right, of course, although the kids and I could see
How much fun creating our own stories could truly be.
Still, I couldn’t help but smile and think of how this battle
Was like the librarian wanted to treat us all like boring cattle.
When I got home, my mind instantly raced to thoughts of those books
That had led to my library teaching.
I thought of the way the librarian would now give me dirty looks
Whenever I now tried to the kids to be reaching.
Was she the evil of the story of my life?
Was she partially good and I just didn’t know it?
Although she caused me a lot of strife,
She had a point that I knew I could get.
Reading now made me a much more active thinker.
And those kids at the library, they inspired me, too.
With my own ideas, I did begin to tinker
Ideas begin forming, through my mind they burst through.
It was time for me to write my own tales of adventure and love
And of good and evil and the blurred lines between them.
With each lift of my pen, with each type I made, I rose above
The writer’s block from which my frustration did once stem.
I wrote every day, even if it was just for a little bit.
I wrote poetry and short stories, about things that I’d known.
I may not have written the next big international hit,
But like music and sports, practice did my writing skills hone.
As years went by, so did my writing talent soar.
I asked my friends and teachers to tell me when to write more
And when to cut back on the extra words that made my writing a bore.
I have to admit, sometimes criticism made me sore.
But my writing improved as a result; it was no longer a snore.
I could write long stories, like a maestro and a musical score.
Writing came so naturally, it was never a chore
Because I thought of my reading and the smile my heart wore.
When a book transported my mind right out the front door
To a land far away, to a gripping tale of lore
When a book really gripped me and shook me to the core.
And I knew that someday, I’d have my own published book or four.