Miguel Montano Composition II August 20, 2012 Literacy Narrative There are several key moments that shaped

my path to literacy, and of those select memorable experiences the one that sticks out the most was my first visit to a library. This momentous occurrence on my journey to literacy happened when I was around 4 years old, when one morning my mother took me into the local town to rent some books. Now I was far too young to remember the names of anything, but I recall feeling so tiny amidst the giant shelves and many rooms filled with books; and at the time I was convinced that this tiny library in a small coastal town in northeast Colombia mustve contained every piece of knowledge known to man. The entire ordeal was a lot to take in, since I was just discovering that books existed outside of my nightstand, or really in any form other than large and colorful. This concept was actually introduced to me the night before my visit, and the idea of there being even more to literature, with it coming in all shapes, sizes, and containing a cornucopia of information, fascinated me. I remember waiting until my mother left the room and sneaking a book from the top drawer of my cherry wood nightstand. I must have spent hours staring at that picture of Peter Rabbit, trying to imagine him in a spaceship, in faraway exotic lands, or even simply playing basketball, and the sheer suspense of what awaited me the next morning kept me up almost the entire night. Upon my arrival at the archaic pale orange building that my mother called a biblioteca I remember being perplexed as to where the books were, since I didnt consider the distinct hardcover lined shelves of a library as being anything particularly special; so when the realization hit me that this was the paradise I had dreamed of, the moment was almost disappointingly anticlimactic, and it

took quite a bit of effort on the elderly woman calling herself a librarians behalf to convince me that reading was a worthwhile activity. Now at this point in my life I could hardly proclaim that I was literate, with almost all of my reading experience coming from my mothers voice and not of my own comprehension of scribbles in lines on pages, so what truly captivated me was not the act in and of itself, but rather the contents of the books read to me and how I chose to interpret them. I didnt care if the boy who cried wolf ever got rescued when the wolf really came; I was convinced he was just trying to draw the beast out to fight it, and the pesky townspeople just kept interfering. Thus, my technical skills did not truly improve much that day, and the time I spent sitting with the faceless librarian on a stack of books, at a table not quite made for someone my size, was far from memorable; for years I still had to carry the brown paper with the wide lines and the fat pencils, but thats not what made this such a crucial moment on my path to literacy. This experience holds significance because it was on that morning that for the first time in my life I caught a glimpse at the true value of literature, and it was in that moment that for me the meaning of literacy had been altered forever. To this day I dont really see literacy as simple word comprehension and motor skills, there are plenty of people who are capable of that who I would quite hesitantly proclaim as literate; instead I see reading as a peek into the mind of another human being, and writing as allowing others one at mine.