Ecstasy.

this comes from a website for one Mrs. Beard's first grade class in michigan. clearly, mrs. beard knows her stuff.

Today I found the Middle Eastern Collection on the fifth floor of the library, and I couldn't help feel happy tears in my eyes when I discovered I could read.

I never experienced that revelation as a child; I grew up with words in my mouth and have never remembered life without books. As a two-year-old I am told I flipped through magazines in the airport, proclaiming racy headlines to amused onlookers; my parents loved to show off their first baby's unnatural affinity for the written word. As a six-year-old I stored handwritten short stories on pink Post-it notes in my closet; at twelve I dissolved into Betty Smith and at seventeen into Conrad and Faulkner, and for the past three years I've consumed just about everything I can find.

But today between the fifth floor stacks, my back to the Welsh Bibles, I realized I can read in Arabic--not just in my textbooks, not just in my drills, and by all means not very well--but it's true, I really can read. Despite not understanding every word, I am trained to guess at meaning and well enough founded in grammar to make out the shape of syntax, voice, and flow.

And so in bliss I researched milestone works in contemporary Arabic literature and checked out two novels with true literary merit, a version of each in Arabic and in English. With them I'm going to challenge myself. And whether I get through six pages or six hundred, one fact remains: I can read.