Literacy, as with anything in Life, improves with practice, thrives on curiosity, and grows with time. Knowing this, it is extremely important for any young child to be reading and composing at an early age while synapses in the brain are still being constructed and re-routed. Literacy at that age will help a strong personality to develop, excellent communication skills and perception, and a more mature perspective concerning Life. I began to read and write at a very early age; I remember reading Edgar Allen Poe poems in pre-school, only to go to school and dread listening to the teaching slowly feed me ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ Progression ensued and I read my first large-novel in 2^nd grade: "The War of the Worlds" – spanning about 450 pages. Since then, not only have I pursued extreme amounts of reading, but have also loved to created hundreds of my own such worlds in my head and on paper.

My first ‘book’ occurred sometime around 1^st grade when I decided to write about an imaginary blend of creatures, a little like the Greek Crematoria but more modern. Though a type of autobiography at the time, I was moving to Illinois and in the story ‘watchyamacallit’ moved in with a little boy who had to move, the story taught me that writing could be utilized to vent feelings, frustrations or to help foster ideas and thinking.

‘Aliens,’ topping off at about 15 pages, quickly became my biggest achievement and my platform to bigger and better projects. It analyzed five different alien cultures that resided on neighboring planets – an excellent chance for me to expand my use of imagery, figurative language, and descriptive vocabulary.

In 3^rd grade I was taught a powerful tool known as the persuasive essay. Though a real framework version: thesis, 3-point summary, 3-body paragraph, point summary and repeat thesis, that framework to this day is clear to me. At the time I thought it was the greatest thing ever and must have annoyed the teacher with all of my extra essays on how I thought the class should be improved (you know, desks in groups, longer lunches, etc.)

While this writing was taking place, I was reading a constant stream of "Boxcar Children," "Hardy Boys," and "Encyclopedia Brown," along with many, many other young-adult fiction novels that I could get a hold of.

My most enjoyable niche would have to Science fiction. I’m a dreamer, always have, always will be. I even plan to freeze myself before death so that I can see what the world has to offer in a thousand years. Such great writers as Wells, Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert!, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Tolkien took me to worlds so detailed and complete I could do nothing else but absorb and keep reading.

I have attempted several works, though none were ever completed. I have written dozens of short stories, but never anything to a scale that suits me. My largest project would most likely be a sci-fi piece I initiated about a group of dinosaurs that suspended themselves in the middle of the earth to live far into the future, the future of humans. It held 25-typed pages underneath its belt and was my most exploring work by far.

I plan to be an author when I grow up. I love the power of words: how you can manipulate them; pathos you can inflict; ideas you can give birth to; changes in society and thinking you can produce; even helping someone with a daily task or reporting news would be entertaining, to say the least. Basically, literacy is important through all aspects of Life, and should not be contained to anyone one decade of someone’s life. Whether it be childhood, or teens; Adult or over-the-hill, literacy is essential to the progression of civilization and as useful to homo sapiens as an opposable thumb was to chimpanzees.