The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me

In "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me" by Sherman Alexie, we are able to see a variety of interesting points. Sherman Alexie demonstrates his passion for books and how they played a very important role in his life; they were an extreme contribution to his career and life. At the beginning of the essay, the author provides plenty of background information.Though financially challenged, his father managed to continue addingbooks to his collection. Those books came in hand for Alexie because through those books he learned to read, write, and now share with the world his appreciation and devotion to books with the world. Also, the author mentions a lot what a paragraph is and how he came to a clear understanding of what it was, he learned by making a few comparison's like "my family's house" and "each family member existed as a separate paragraph..." Furthermore, Alexie states that he learned how to read with a "Superman" comic book. He made assertions of what the characters were saying in the pictures and continued to do so until he learned to read. Lastly, he says how even though it was expected for Indians to do poorly academically, he refuse to be a part of that statistic and instead aimed high and succeeded in his studies. Now we see that all those factors in his life helped him become the writer that he is now. Just as Sherman Alexie learned to read with a comic book anyone can be as successful by taking one step at a time.


I thought this essay was very interesting and intriguing. Unlike many of the things I read, this made me want to keep reading it. I found it interesting how he compares it to the house and his family members. It not only made me understand a paragraph better but it influenced me to find examples that will help me understand things in general better. His essays is very straight forward which i liked, I did not have to stop often to look up words and stuff. Hence, i believe it gives a glimp of hope to many and inspires them to not give up and pursue their goals.