Featured Narrative Series, #472 "Reading Tom Clancy"

Today's featured Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives archive, #472 by narrator "Shane, Willis", is titled "Reading Tom Clancy."  In the DALN narrative submission data, the narrator describes this narrative as taking place in Ohio during the 1990s. The narrative is marked with the keywords English, Father, Fourth Grade, and Tom Clancy.

One night when I was about ten years old I couldn’t sleep, so of course I did what most ten year olds do, I bugged my parents. My dad worked the early shift at work and had very little patience for my constant interruptions, so after about my fourth or fifth trip into my parents’ room he finally decided to do something about it. He took me to his closet where he had a box of books and picked up a thick volume, Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor, and told me not to come back until I had finished reading it or I would be grounded.

So I started reading. Since I was only in the fourth grade many of the concepts presented were way beyond my understanding, but for some reason I was hooked. I didn’t stop reading for nearly four hours. After that night it took me nearly a month to finish the entire book, when I was finished I had developed a love of reading that stayed with me to this day. From that day on I was never without a book, some days staying home ‘sick’ from school just to finish a particularly interesting novel.

I would say I have my father to thank for my passion for reading, even though his intent was only to get me to sleep.

Do you have a story about a special author or book that changed your experiences with reading?  Or perhaps a story about a pivotal person in your literacy life?  Please consider sharing it with the DALN in text, audio, or video form!

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1. View the full item record for narrative #472 in the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, or

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