I Love My Job

I get a lot of letters from readers.

I read and love each and every one of them.

And every once in a while, I get a special letter....

...one that reminds me that what I do is important and appreciated and might make a difference to someone.

Recently, I received one of those letters.

With the permission of the sender, I'm printing it here in its entirety.

I love my job.

 

Dear Barbara O’Connor,

  

Growing up I noticed that I had trouble reading. I was born dyslexic and so I had trouble understanding how to comprehend the words that I was reading, so not long after the second grade I decided I was not going to read unless I really needed to.

It didn’t take long after I made the decision to not read unless I found a good enough reason that of course I found one. My older brother had a dog named Roscoe. He was my brother’s best friend they did everything together, but one night Roscoe went outside without my brother and he got hit by a car passing down our street very fast. My brother stayed up for days so sad and he refused to go to school. Soon after, my mother asked me if I knew anything that could help him cheer up, and after thinking about it for a while I couldn’t really think of anything until I went on a class trip to the library and my librarian asked me what kind of books I was interested in and I immediately thought of my brother and I told my librarian that I wanted to LOOK at books about dogs so maybe I could show him cool pictures of dogs that looked like Roscoe to cheer him up. 

My librarian looked up the key word Dog and the only book that she found in what was supposed to be my reading level was your book How to steal a dog. Without even opening it I came up with the perfect idea to cheer up my brother.

I figured that your book would teach me how to get or steal a dog for my brother so he would not be sad anymore (I want to remind you that I was only nine years old and didn’t fully think through what I was planning on doing.) So I found the perfect reason to read my very first big girl book as I called them (with chapters). I figured that if I skimmed through it I could figure out fairly quickly what I wanted to know. 

So I started flipping through the pages and I couldn’t find a list of ways to get a dog, so I figured I would sort of start reading the book to find out where in the book it gave me the steps that I was looking for. Of course I could not find them so then I thought I should just try to actually read it and maybe I could figure out what I wanted to know.

After I started reading the book I became fascinated with Georgina and her family. I guess I could say that I sort of felt connected to Georgina and I became interested in her and her family. So I started reading the book because I was interested in it instead of my original meaning.

After I finished the book I was so proud of myself for actually reading a book that didn’t have just pictures in it. I bragged to my family and friends and even teachers. I was so interested in your book that I wanted to read more of it, I was sad that the book was over and that I would never get to know what had happened to Georgina and her family after the book ended. I tried to Google books that had similarities with your book and I couldn’t find anything that seemed fascinating to me. So I never really read another chapter book again after your book.

I enjoyed your book very much. When I was in my English class at school I was telling a story to my friend about how I would like to become an author when I got older but I thought that I would be a hypocrite if I wrote books but did not read them because of my difficulties with words. 

While I was telling my story my instructor, Ms. White overheard me and asked what I was talking about. After I explained everything that I was saying before, I told her that I have only read one real book my whole life and that I loved it. When I told her that the book was How to steal a dog she immediately knew what book I was talking about and remembered that her mentor was your best friend and told me she was going to try to get a hold of her mentor through Facebook and tell her about my story and she was hoping to get in contact with you.

  

Despite my challenges with reading I am actually very good with writing and grammar. I just have trouble while reading words because the letters mix match and change up and the words seem to look different. 

I’m not really sure why I let it defy me so much. I guess it could be because it seems like a good excuse to not try hard enough or to be lazy. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that since I thought of those assumptions that maybe they could be true, maybe.

I am so enthusiastic about writing you this letter. I really hope you find my liking of your book interesting. I hope you can find time to write me back with everything you have going on.

Thank you for your time,