Muhammad Mamsa
Professor Voisard
English 210
1st may 2022
The book that showed me up!

In elementary school I was a kid that hated reading. Math was my strongest subject and I just never felt the need to pick up a book. That all changed when I had my 4th grade teacher Mr.Omeda. This man was in love with books all his life and was so enthusiastic towards them He made the kids want to try. First, he got to know everyone’s interests and got a gist of the books they liked. Then it was all uphill from there.
Percy Jackson and the lightning thief, I remember that book so vividly. It was one of the first I’ve ever read. Right off the bat I saw it was a pretty hefty book and didn’t want to read it. Mr.Omeda forced me to read the first 2 pages he said “If you don’t like it that’s fine, there are other options”. After reading the first two pages I was instantly transported to a world of Greek gods and demigods. It’s like a movie was playing in my head with each word I read. I could see the scenes so clearly in my head. After that day for the next month or so I continued to read and read. Everywhere I went my head was in a book. It got to a point where Mr.Omeda himself had to hold on to my book during class so I would actually pay attention. The number of times I got yelled at for having my book under my desk to read was unprecedented.
I only had one problem with the book. The fact that it was so lengthy and hard to read. I thought I was reading a book for college kids at the time. I felt like the smartest kid in class taking up the challenge of reading a thesaurus-like book. That was until I saw one of my closest friends reading “the sea of monsters”. The next book by Percy Jackson. At that moment I felt so provoked and embarrassed. I’m in 4th grade. No one was reading a book longer than 50 pages at the time. But here we were, me and my friend both with 300-page books. The only difference was he had already finished the book I was reading. I was so jealous and hot headed I ripped the book from his hand and threw it across the classroom. My entire face was red and tears were coming out of my eyes. I wanted to be the smartest kid in the class but that’s not what it was really about. Mr.Omeda also recommended these books to my friend; He was just a faster reader. That’s what this was really about. All my life, I’ve always had the highest reading level of my class. Even though I barely read books. That was the one thing that never changed about me but as soon as I saw my friend reading a book the same length as me, I lost it. I didn’t even want to read anymore. I left my Percy Jackson book on my desk for a week after that untouched. Mr.Omeda noticed very quickly and decided to talk to me. He saw what happened and what the problem was and sat down with me and my friend and explained his love of books. Explaining that there is no competition in this the only thing you gain is knowledge. After sharing words with my friend, we both made up and continued to read our books. We’d even talk about it at lunch sometimes.
This experience just boosted my love of books and I still read books to this day. I’ll never forget Mr.Omeda, the teacher that instilled my passion for reading. After that I read all of Rick Riordan’s books. He continues to be my favorite author and I’ve even read the books outside of the Percy Jackson series. This was definitely a moment to remember for me and one that I’ll never forget and as time goes on, I know my love of books and stories will keep growing.