Ray Bradbury, acclaimed writer and author once said that “The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” In his famous novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury gives an account of a fictional America, which has let the importance of reading, and the importance of books in general, depreciate so much that books become taboo to own. Firemen are called not to put out fires but called to start them, burning houses, and the books they contain, to the ground. Through the story, a fireman and therefore avid non-reader, named Guy Montag becomes a reader after finding a book and simply being brave enough to open it. Although he doesn’t understand what all the words on the page mean at first, he doesn’t give up and eventually discovers a new, fascinating part of his world – the written word. In the same way an Olympian …show more content…
To become a reader on the other hand involves more complicated processes. First, one must determine what type of non-reader one is: a lazy literate person, or motivated illiterate person. If one is the illiterate person who wants to read but doesn’t know how, congratulations on being brave and embarking on the journey of a reader. To begin your journey, start at the beginning, with the help of a teacher, tutor, or program, study and learn the alphabet. After this the hard part is over. Next, learn how to connect the letters into words. Lastly, read anything that can be found – magazines, newspapers, signs and billboards, and most importantly books of all shapes, sizes, and subjects. As in anything in life, reading might at first seem difficult, but never give up and never stop practicing. It may at first seem tedious, pointless, or even a waste of time, but as Dr. Seuss said in his famous children’s book Oh The Places You’ll