After the reading,"The Secondhand Bookseller" to my surprise I enjoyed it. I found it hard to beleive how much I took for granite, and how deprived some people are. I know personally I would rather do unimportant things with my time. That alone made me that much more involved with this story.
In this story I found it hard to stop reading, and wanted it to be longer. I found it incredible how mature this young girl was. She had wants just like every other girl today, but her priority was to learn. Not only that she also understood how her family was living, and what they could afford. At the time a book was not one of the priorities. I enjoyed reading the part where this little girl opened up to her mom and asked if she could get a new book. The little girl at this point was unsure what to expect because of there financial situation. However the little girl was pleased to hear her mother tell her she would be able to get one book per month. The child thought to her self and realized after the joy, that one book wouldn't take a month to read.
The child then came up with a plan on how to save money to purchase more than just that one book a month. She decided to save her milk money, and even sell a pencil case. A while back the child noticed a secondhand bookstore. She surly thought she would be able to find something there to her interest, not only that she thought they would be cheap. So one day while her parents were out she decided to see what the store had to offer. There at the store she was pleased to see all the books, and there she was pleased to meet the owner of the store Albert. Albert was surprised to see this young girl in his store. He then proceeded to ask her if he could help her find something. She told him she was looking for any good book. He then found it hard to believe that this young girl really want a book, more so than anything else. He found a book she might like, and then proceeds to give her a break on the price.
After three or four day the girl had it read twice, and was ready for the next book. The girl then proceeded to go back book store. when returning to the book store Albert was expecting the young girl to want a refund of the book. However to his surprise she was back for more. Albert then seeing in the girls eyes her true love for books went on to telling her she could barrow books. His only catch was she had to take care of them. The little girl was ecstatic, and seen him as a angel. After reading this section it made me appreciate everything I've been taking for granite.
In terms of how mature she is, I can definitely agree with you. When I was a third grader, the only thing I really cared about was how much time I can spend NOT studying and how much time I can spend watching TV. For most people, myself obviously included, I felt like reading was a complete and utter chore. Basically, I felt as if the only reason we were assigned reading books was because the teachers and supervisors were just trying to keep us busy. The fact that a young girl at that age has such a desire to read amazes me. Also, in terms of her maturity, she found many “loopholes” to help feed her desire to read. When I was a child, selling my awesome looking pencil box and not buying milk were definitely not an option. Not only that, but her scented eraser?! Heck no, back then I would totally keep that over getting some “stupid” book, haha. Another thing that I agree with you is how much I also own things absent mindedly. For example, I have tons and tons of textbooks, novels, and poem compilations at my house, and I have never honestly thought of a lot of them as precious items. The fact that she went through so many obstacles (financial or otherwise) to get a few books is awesome. It’s really sad that, in the world I have been raised in, books are seen as such common items and not the phenomenal pieces of literature that they are.
ReplyDeleteIt is very clear that this girl is very mature, but I also feel that she is very smart for her age too. She not only planned away to access books more than once a month, but she could read english when Albert thought she could not. You can also tell she was very resourceful becasue when she was unable to figure out a word she would use her dad's dictionary to figure it out. Also it does make me feel a little bad that I do not do imporant things with my time like read or further my education like she did. The obstacles she faced and found was to defeat the odds against her makes her a true inspiration. Fianlly, you can tell her mature manner helped her become a very educated women and able to face an obstacles with the hope of overcoming any problems.
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