More+Literacy+Autobiographies

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//__**My Literacy Autobiography by Trevor LeCain, Lab Assistant**__// My love affair with books began with my mother reading to me as a child. She would always read me the wackiest stuff: Graeme Base's //Animalia,// Maurice Sendak's //Where The Wild Things Are,// and //Grimm's Fairy Tales// are the first that come to mind.

In intermediate school I was hooked on R.L. Stein's //Goosebumps// collection//.// I probably read over 50 of them, sometimes reading one in a single day; they were like crack to me. Later on in middle school it was all about J.R.R. Tolkein's //The Lord of the Rings// trilogy. Technically, it began with //The Hobbit//, an introduction to the trilogy. Point is, these books took me on an epic adventure when Daphne, Alabama proved to be too boring. Neverthless, that was enough fantasy to last me through high school.

In fact, I didn't read much of anything in high school. It wasn't "cool" to read. I don't remember any of my friends reading. I still secretly entertained myself with Stephen King novels from time to time, but I was a "closet-reader". That's sad. It shouldn't have been that way. Because in my freshman year of college I discovered books that I probably would have found extremely entertaining. Novels such as Dave Egger's //The Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius//, Joseph Heller's //Catch//-//22,// Jack Kerouac's //On the Road,// Kurt Vonnegut's //Slaughter-House Five//, Ernest Hemingway's //For Whom The Bell Tolls...// The list goes on//.//

College was like a literary revival for me. In high school I'd completely dismissed reading altogether, but in college my love affair with books was reignited. Like Ms. Fowler, I remember reading until 4am and beyond, right until the sun came up. My dad thought I was crazy, and skipping so much sleep like that eventually does make you a little crazy. But it's one of the best things that ever happened to me. It got my head out of the gutter and back into the world of our country's greatest thinkers, the real movers and shakers. In fact, I credit literature with keeping me out of all kinds of trouble because it's harder to get caught up in the mix with a bunch of dummies when you're in your room flipping through sheets of paper.

Since then it's been mostly assigned material from college instructors, but all of those late nights helped prepare me for it. Nevertheless, I still make time to discover new authors. Michael Chabon and Jeffrey Eugenides are currently my favorites. What are