1.How Reading Changed My Life(818)

Ninth grade rewrite

How Reading Changed My Life

【1】I had a wonderful childhood in a wonderful place. Growing up in a neighborhood that's perfect for raising kids, with nice houses, beautiful roses, and quiet streets, we walked to school and played outside in the summer. We knew everyone and their families. Some of my classmates still live there.

【2】But I always felt like I should be somewhere else. Even though I didn't have anywhere to go or any reason to leave, I traveled the world through books. I visited Victorian England in "Middlemarch" and "A Little Princess," and Saint Petersburg before the tsar fell in "Anna Karenina." I went to Tara, Manderley, and Thornfield Hall, those grand houses with high ceilings and big stories, as I read "Gone with the Wind," "Rebecca," and "Jane Eyre."

【3】In eighth grade, I took a scholarship test for a convent school, and the essay question started with a quote from "A Tale of Two Cities": "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." I knew the answer right away, and I felt sure the scholarship was mine. How many times had I followed Sydney Carton to that better rest at the end of the book?

【4】Books were like places I had lived in, visited, and would visit again. The characters—Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennett, Dill, and Scout—were more real to me than the people I knew in real life. My home was in that nice place outside Philadelphia, but I really lived in books. They were more real to me than anything else.

【5】I remember a poem from grade school by Emily Dickinson: "There is no Frigate like a book / To take us Lands away / Nor any coursers like a Page / Of prancing Poetry." Maybe only a child who is not happy can love books as much as I did. Maybe being restless is part of really loving to read. There was a special chair in our house where I always sat to read, with my legs over one arm.

【6】My mom would say, "It's a beautiful day," and she was right, even when it snowed. "All your friends are outside." Sometimes I went out to play with them, but I always came back to my books.

【7】I have clear memories of playing outside, like looking for crayfish in the creek or flattening pennies on the trolley tracks. But my best times were always at home, with a book open on the table, waiting for me to come back and bring the story to life.

【8】Since those days, I've learned that I'm not alone in loving books. Through reading, I've traveled to other worlds and into my own. I learned who I am and who I want to be, what I can dream about for my world and myself.

【9】I learned the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. There was waking life and sleeping life. And then there were books, a kind of parallel world where I was always a newcomer but never really a stranger. My real, true world. My perfect island.

【10】Years later, I found out that I wasn't alone in that world or on that island. I discovered that while I was reading, Jamaica Kincaid was reading in Antigua, like she was starving and the book was bread. Reading has always been my home, my food, my great, strong friend. "Book love," Trollope called it. "It will make your hours pleasant as long as you live."

【11】I read because I loved it more than anything else. As an adult, I realized that while I still loved reading, the world sometimes didn't understand that joy. People who read a lot are sometimes seen as lazy or dreamy, people who need to grow up and join the real world.

【12】But reading saved me from despair. The more I read, the more I realized that people have always said the same thing about books—that there was a golden age that is gone. Reading is like breathing to me. It's a part of life that is always there, even if people don't talk about it much. We are the people who love books, who keep them alive. We are the real reason for the world of books.

【13】If I believed everything I read about reading, I would be sad. But instead, I have letters from readers to think about, like the one from a girl who called herself a bookworm after reading one of my books. "So am I," I wrote back.

九年级改写

阅读如何改变了我的生活

【1】我在一个美好的地方度过了美好的童年。我们在一个非常适合养育孩子的社区长大，那里有漂亮的房子、美丽的玫瑰和安静的街道，夏天我们走路上学，在外面玩耍。我们认识每个人以及他们的家人。我的一些同学仍然住在那里。

【2】但我总觉得我应该去别的地方。尽管我没有地方可去，也没有理由离开，但我还是通过书籍周游了世界。我在《米德尔马契》和《小公主》中参观了维多利亚时代的英国，在《安娜·卡列尼娜》中参观了沙皇倒台前的圣彼得堡。我去了塔拉庄园、曼陀利庄园和桑菲尔德庄园，读《乱世佳人》、《丽贝卡》和《简·爱》，这些都是天花板高高的、故事情节宏大的大房子。

【3】八年级时，我参加了一所修道院学校的奖学金考试，作文题的开头引用了《双城记》中的一句话:“我现在做的事，比我以前做过的任何事都要美好得多;我要去的安息，远比我所知道的要好得多。”我马上就知道了答案，我确信奖学金是我的。有多少次我跟着西德尼·卡登在书的结尾得到了更好的休息?

【4】书就像我曾经住过、参观过、还会再去的地方。这些人物，《绿山墙》中的安妮、海蒂、杰伊·盖茨比、伊丽莎白·班尼特、迪尔和斯考特，对我来说比我在现实生活中认识的人更真实。我的家在费城郊外的一个好地方，但我真正的生活在书里。它们对我来说比任何东西都更真实。

【5】我记得埃米莉·狄金森小学时写的一首诗:“没有一艘护卫舰像一本书/带我们去远方/也没有一辆马车像一页/欢快的诗歌。”也许只有一个不快乐的孩子，才能像我一样爱书。也许不安分是真正热爱阅读的一部分。我们家有一把特别的椅子，我总是坐在那里看书，把腿搭在一只胳膊上。

【6】我妈妈会说:“今天天气真好。”她是对的，即使下雪了。“你所有的朋友都在外面。”有时我出去和他们玩，但我总是回到我的书。

【7】我清楚地记得在外面玩耍，比如在小溪里寻找小龙虾，或者在电车轨道上压扁硬币。但我最美好的时光总是在家里，桌上有一本书打开，等着我回来，把故事讲得栩栩如生。

【8】从那些日子起，我了解到我并不是唯一一个爱书的人。通过阅读，我游历了其他的世界，也进入了我自己的世界。我知道了我是谁，我想成为谁，我可以为我的世界和我自己梦想什么。

【9】我学会了善与恶、对与错的区别。有醒着的生命和睡着的生命。然后是书，一个平行的世界，在那里我总是一个新人，但从来没有真正的陌生人。我真实的世界。我完美的岛屿。

【10】多年以后，我发现在那个世界或那个岛上，我并不孤单。我发现在我读书的时候，牙买加·金凯德正在安提瓜读书，就像她在挨饿，而书就是面包。读书一直是我的家，我的食物，我伟大而坚强的朋友。特罗洛普称之为“书之恋”。“只要你活着，它就会使你的时光愉快。”

【11】我读书是因为我爱读书胜过爱其他任何事情。作为一个成年人，我意识到，虽然我仍然喜欢阅读，但这个世界有时并不理解这种快乐。读很多书的人有时被认为是懒惰或爱做梦的人，是需要成长并融入现实世界的人。

【12】但读书使我免于绝望。我读得越多，就越意识到人们总是对书说同样的话，黄金时代已经一去不复返了。阅读对我来说就像呼吸。这是生活中一直存在的一部分，即使人们不怎么谈论它。我们是爱书的人，是让书充满活力的人。我们是书的世界的真正原因。

【13】如果我相信我读到的关于阅读的一切，我会很难过。但相反，我有读者的来信要考虑，比如一个女孩在读了我的一本书后称自己为书虫。“我也是，”我回复道。