How Reading Impacted Me: Stargirl By Jerry Spinelli

“How Reading Impacted Me” Throughout my life I have had an interesting relationship with reading. I remember that when I first started learning to read I struggled a bit and absolutely dreaded it. Once I began to understand how to read, I started to enjoy it and I read at any available opportunity. One of the books that had really inspired me and made the most significant impact on my life was a book called Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. This was a story about a girl called Stargirl. Her family and peers called her Stargirl because she had never really fit into a certain group or club at her school. However, she never let being considered as an outcast effect her. I looked up to this character so much as a child. I remember that I related to Stargirl because I never

I have always been so grateful for being able to read. When I was only three years old I was told that I would need glasses. My eyesight was, and still is terrible. The optometrists I visited conducted many tests on my eyes because my grandmother, uncle, cousin, and father have a rare disorder called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a group of rare, genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and loss of cells in the retina—which is the light sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye (“Facts about Retinitis Pigmentosa”). I have yet to be officially diagnosed with this disorder, but I began to show symptoms of this disorder a few years ago. First, I developed almost complete night blindness. After that, I eventually began to notice that certain colors did not look the same as I remembered them. This disorder is genetic, but I will not discover if I carry the gene until I have children, which is terrifying. The possibility of going blind is not something that anyone should have to think about or go through. Unfortunately, that is the reality that many of my family members, and possibly I, have to face. Being able to see is