A Summer So Unforgetable - My First Book Reading Experience

Novels, Comics, Essays and Poems, I love to read them all. My mother says it’s one of the worst addictions a person can have but I disagree, I say it’s the art of experiencing the world through different lenses. But readers are not born, they are made. I was the same, I never liked reading, to me it always was just a bunch of words that I could hardly pronounce. I had seen some of my friends reading books but it never occurred to me to read them myself. Because reading a text and not being able to understand what it meant was more like I was on a road to embarrassing myself. Reading was one of the furthest hobbies in my mind until….

One day as I returned home from school I saw an array of books on the bedroom floor, all colourful and brand new. Think of almost 60 books on the bedroom floor, how would it look? It seemed that my cousin had bought them for a good deal online. I grabbed the book nearest to me and I could not read the name of the author at all, “Geronimo Stilton”. I leafed through the book and the one thing that struck me the most was its colourful font, so many pictures and most importantly I had seen a cartoon based on this on TV, in the mind of a 10 year old it just felt like I am getting to know some really famous TV personality. I started reading one of the books that very evening and I still distinctly remember skipping through almost every word that  I could not pronounce, still it took me 15 days to complete a single book and there were still 59 books to go through. Lucky for me, the summer vacation was just around the corner, I can recall how frustrated my family were with me holding on to a book everywhere I went. I had meals, went to bed, hid in the terrace while reading them, slowly I started paying attention to the words, reading them word by word carefully.

Unbeknownst to me, my reading efficiency had increased a fair share, the book which took me 2 whole days to complete, I could finish in  a single day, my vocabulary had improved where I could hold a proper conversation in english on topics that I usually found hard to talk on, my story telling trait had an excellent polish, as someone who loves to talk it gave me a refined way of holding conversations, and most important of them all, it opened my mind to the world of imaginations, Imagine a tan rodent, wearing a three piece tuxedo, a red tie, round glasses with a suitcase in its paws running a newspaper. Think of how absurd that seems in the real world, still it was really fun reading them anyway. As the pile of the books which I had finished reading grew, my happiness grew along with it, and by the time I had finished the entire collection of Geronimo Stilton I was halfway through the next academic year.

 I started reading those same books again the next summer, and the next, and the next. Today I can finish a 200 page Geronimo stilton book in 2-3 hours. Although I’ve read countless books from other wonderful authors, Geronimo still holds a special place in my heart. Sure, some of the story lines do not align with my morals but it is a fact that I learned so many things about the world in the comfort of my home with one of my favorite books in hand. Like I know how and why the Egyptians built pyramids, or what are the different temperatures on different altitude in mount kilimanjaro, or how venice looks like and what is it famous for, or how stilton cheese is made and so much more, while never having step a foot in Egypt, Mount Kilimanjaro, Venice, or not even having a taste of stilton cheese. Now, reading Geronimo stilton is still one of my favorite summer go-to activities, a nostalgic memory that I go back to.

Reading a non-fiction book is never just about words, It teaches one many things, from understanding  story lines, putting yourself in the other person’s perspective, creating a space to feel different emotions along with the characters, sometimes morals, endless room for imaginations through the books, to having the ability to understand the opposite person, identifying emotions, looking at ourselves from another perspective, this gives one the ability to identify a flaw that they might have and to rectify it. As addictive reading is, it gets the reader to live through different eras, and different stories. As Jhumpa Lahiri, an American author said “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” Happy Reading!!

Name: Sabahat Mariyam M, Co- Secretary, Jamalia Unit, GIO Chennai

Date: 1 May 2026.

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