I have always loved to read. In a way, I was destined to love it because it has been one of the central focuses of my life practically from the day I was born. As a baby, everyone, and I do mean everyone, would read to me. As a result, I have read pretty much anything that was in front of me since I’ve been able to read. I read Little Women when I was ten, and Pride and Prejudice when I was twelve. I have read a lot of books and have many favorite ones, so it is quite difficult to choose a sole one that could be considered the most influential in my life, every book I read has an impact in some way, leaving new facts, teaching life lessons that make a person wiser through something other than experience, and providing entertainment that movies can normally just not live up to. Most of what I know has come from one book or another each being influential, so I’m just going to choose one series of books and write about it.
A series of books that have had an influence on my life is the Mother-Daughter Book Club Series. I probably discovered this series when I was about ten or eleven years old. It begins with the first book, The Mother-Daughter Book Club, and continues into, I believe, seven volumes. I loved this series because it focused on four, and later five, girls and their mothers. They were very relatable characters who were of the same age I was when I started reading the series. Each character has a different personality that makes them relatable to whomever might be reading the series. They encounter everyday problems from bullying to foreclosure that also appeal to people of different backgrounds.
This series taught me about creative problem solving, as the characters solve the many issues that they face in hilarious and interesting ways that most people wouldn’t think of. It taught me that there is always a way to solve a problem, even if you have to think outside of the box.
It also taught me to delve deeper into what I read. Each book centers on another book, usually a classic (like Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Daddy-Long Legs, and many more), that the girls have to read for this book club. In the scenes that focus on the meetings that the characters have, a series of fun facts about the author of the book that they are reading is given. This has taught me more about the authors of some of my favorite classics and has demonstrated how their lives play a role in shaping their books. I also love history and find these facts immensely interesting. These facts have also encouraged me to learn more about many of the books I’ve read. For example, I was reading Hamlet for this class and my grandmother brought to my attention Isaac Asimov’s, Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare. This book has greatly enhanced my understanding of the play by bringing the contextual information about the influences of the play, the history leading up to it and surrounding the period in which it was written, and has explained some of the harder to understand bits of the play. Reading this has greatly enhanced my understanding of the play and allows me to learn more from it.
This series has also encouraged me to read books that I may not have otherwise, and has made classics seem more interesting. I’ve read Jane Eyre, and more of Jane Austen’s work such as, Emma and Sense and Sensibility. The author’s humor and application of the different books’ lessons makes them much more appealing to read.
These books also emphasize the importance of family and friends, and the role that they play in helping us solve life’s issues. They have made me more grateful for those that I have in my life. They show that it’s okay to be different because those who matter don’t care, and those who care don’t matter. In other words, there is always someone who out there who supports you through whatever you want to do in life. This lesson is common in many books that I’ve read.
In the end, this series has been rather influential and has increased my love of reading. Good books always leave you wishing there were more pages and this series accomplished that. It taught me many lessons and has enhanced my reading experience, and it was fun reading them. Isn’t that what is important when all is said and done?
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