The Hardy Boys Book Analysis

“Mom, I don’t want to read my book tonight!”, I would yell from my bedroom. “What do you mean? You love reading!”, she would calmly say. Irritated and fed up I would scream back, “No I don’t! Not anymore!”. This was a daily occurrence around my fourth-grade year of elementary school. She was right, I loved reading ever since I was a little kid just starting school. Mystery and action and adventure were my favorite genre of books to read. Specifically, The Hardy Boys. All of the different mysteries they solved and the adventures they embarked on captured my mind and left and everlasting impression on me. It was so hard for me to put a book down, that my parents had to march into my room at night to make sure I had the lights off and was all
was the assigning of our reading levels. This made me mad because I never had the highest reading level in the class, but I still thought of myself as a good reader. Here I was, a ten-year-old boy who is being told what I can and cannot read. I would walk into the library excited to get a book I’ve been longing to read, only to check it out and the librarian saying, “Collin, this book is probably too hard for you. I think you should find something that is in your range”. I would leave angry and unmotivated to read a single page out of a different book I had no interest in reading. I would go home and do everything in my power to avoid opening my book. The only reason I struggled through those books were because of the points I was forced to get. This was polar opposites from my usual ways with an interesting book like the Hardy Boys. Instead of wanting to read just “one more chapter”, I couldn’t get through the chapters fast enough. Once the book was closed for the night, I spent not one single thought on that horrid thing. They never kept me up thinking, pondering, and guessing. I would never find myself excited to continue reading on. I was tired of reading and I was only through the first couple chapters. The fun I had reading was fading away. Ever since then, reading in the classroom, and or casually has never been the same. I dread having to read anything that I didn’t personally choose myself. The only reading I do is during school
I believe I can learn to enjoy this hobby once again if I read the right thing. I am able to specifically choose what I want to read. I have taken steps towards this and have started reading a book that my friend gave me. I have enjoyed it and I don’t have to worry about a teacher telling me I can’t read it because it’s out of my level. The material is different from years ago in the third grade. Rather that mystery and adventure, what interest me more are novels regarding life. The book my friend Zach gave me is called Toughness, by Jay Bilas. It’s about character and building strength in life. Books like this really catch my attention. They might not be as fascinating or exhilarating as fictional books, but the lessons I’ve learned and the personal growth that can take place is really what excites me. Looking back to the third grade and remembering the love of reading slip through my