You are what you read – literature-ly

Wesira Abdi

By Wesira Abdi, North News Intern

Growing up in a Somali Muslim community, books were my life. There's nothing like traversing worlds and universes on a moment's whim. My home was a mini library, with books ranging from “Cat in The Hat” to “The Chronicles of Narnia.” 

Don’t worry, my taste in books has matured. 

My life was more closed off than others. Sure I had friends, and did what any normal kid would do. I played hide and seek, brushed my teeth, and went to school.

But I preferred to stay indoors during my childhood because I was more comfortable there. I was surrounded by my culture everywhere I went.

I loved my childhood and my family. I wouldn’t change it for the world. Great as it was, it was also monotonous. The people around me had the same experiences, ideas, and dreams. 

Reading changed me. 

Without reading books, I wouldn't have known people could choose different paths, that they experienced life with completely different perspectives and that you shouldn't go around giving mice cookies. 

I don’t remember the first book I read, but I do remember how it felt. Reading filled me with wonder. It brought change and new experiences. 

“Reading fosters human connection,” journalist Holly Korbey said in the MIT Technology Review. 

When I was younger, I helped teach my siblings how to read, taught them which vowel made what sound and what letters spelled their names. Now most of them are book lovers like me and our relationships are all the better for it.
I cultivated empathy with books. I learned that the world was wide, and complex. Reading taught me to love learning.

Reading ultimately shapes who we are, how we move around the world and how we feel about our place in it.

“As we read, we are stepping into the shoes of different characters, experiencing their emotions, and challenges,” Kimberly Huynh of the The Beatrice Martin Foundation, a Black literacy organization, said. 

A report by the National Literacy Trust found that children who have access to books at home are more likely to be proficient readers and perform better in school. Reading fiction is shown to increase better decision making in people by at least 50%. 

The same report also found that children who read for pleasure are more likely to have better mental health and well being.

When children read about characters who look like themselves and have comparable backgrounds to them they feel more empowered and seen.  

When I first read a book with a protagonist like me, I was filled with joy. When I saw myself reflected in a book, it was refreshing. 

“Ayeeyo’s Golden Rule,” written by my former elementary school teacher, Mariam Mohamed, is a book representing Somali Muslim girls living in the western hemisphere. I really appreciated having a story I could relate to.

“I could see how the students are hungry to be represented,” Mohamed said.

The story’s protagonist wore a hijab like me, and despite the bullying she underwent because she is different, she stayed strong and overcame her troubles.

What we read stays with us. 

From the simple understanding of others emotions, informational excerpts, to the complex worlds we explore when reading, we keep parts of it with us.