The New Jersey sunset illuminated my room in hues of amber, scarlet, and ruby when I realized that I could not see the vanilla color of my walls. Squinting in my dimly lit room, I picked up my phone to power it on. The glow of the screen blinded my eyes as I checked the time; the clock read 7:20 PM. I sat up in shock and realized that I have been in holed up in my room for more than five hours; all because of a book. In those five hours, I was not in my New Jersey bedroom but rather invested in a fictitious land where gods and monsters were real. The book guilty of keeping me locked up was Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan; a novel that introduced me to the world of Greek mythology. Ever since I was a child, mythology and fantasy always peaked my interest because of the dramatic tales that were believed to be explanations of how the world works. The image of grand gods and goddesses clothed in pure white and gold, …show more content…
Sentences were flowing out of my mouth as I read them off the page of a simple picture book. One of my earliest memories of reading came at a time when I was in kindergarten. The teacher would call out “reading time!” and my sister and I would rush to the floor of the classroom, grabbing the same book: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. We would both read it together every day, enchanted by the tale of burgers and fries falling from the sky. My love of reading only blossomed from there; I discovered the school had a library and from that point onwards, the library was my favorite place to be. I would rummage through the shelves of books looking for a cover that captured my interest. I still remember stories of a pigeon riding a bus and a girl and her stuffed animal bunny. But because of my overactive imagination, I needed stories that would take me to another world, so I was naturally drawn to science fiction and