My Adolescent Defining Moment

I really enjoyed reading the defining moments that each author wrote. My favorite was Lois Lowery's probably because she is my favorite author of all time. Her story was about an experience she had as an adolescent in Tokyo. She was on a bus with other American students, mostly older than her and it was Christmas time. When she stepped on the bus she noticed endless amounts of decorations, which was unusual because the bus driver was most likely not Christian. She also realized that he bought the decorations with his own money. While on the bus a "loud-mouthed" older boy decided to rip down a decoration and many students then followed in his foot steps. Although Lowery didn't participate in this act of disrespect, she also didn't say or do anything. She realized at that moment that she betrayed herself for no doing anything. She was just as bad as the other students.

Once I read this story, it gave me a lot of insight into Lowery's writing. In her book Number the Stars, she brings up many moments of betrayal and unfairness. I can see why she write abouts those moments. Most of us can relate to moments of betrayal, although they are usually not as severe as the Holocaust. She really puts things into perspective.

I think my defining moment as an adolescent was when I read Bridge to Teribethia for the first time. I was never a reader and I was assigned to read a book and do a book report for my 6th grade English class. At this point in my life reading was a chore--something I did to complete assignments. For some reason I was really drawn into this particular book. I actually read it in my free time when I could have been watching TV. One night my dad and I were reading the part of the book were Jesse's best friend dies. I was so surprised because both of us had tears streaming down our faces. This was the very first time that a book really touched me and made me feel like I was there living the incident with Jesse. It completely changed my outlook on books, although I still do not read for fun very often.