Anyone can be a reader. 

As a society, we’re all guilty of stereotyping an avid reader for someone who denies a ride to the football game or asks the teacher for more homework. But the truth is that sometimes the high-school jock goes home and cuddles up with his copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and sometimes the girl with glasses and straight A’s refuses to pick up a book in public out of fear that someone will tell her, “how stereotypical”. 

For some people, reading is an escape from reality. Visiting other places, relating to characters, and simply being able to find pleasure in a plot when there’s no interesting plot in one’s own life. So why is that characterized as being someone who’s a “nerd”? 

“Reading is just understanding a different kind of art. It’s a painting made of words that everyone looks at differently,” states Emma Smith, freshman. 

People criticize things they don’t understand. If reading isn’t for you, it simply just is not for you. But why simplify to such a small way of thinking by saying that only a certain type of people read? The girl next to you may pull out her phone, or maybe she might pull out Pride and Prejudice. It doesn’t matter.

People who like to read, read. People who don’t like to read, don’t. A jock shouldn’t be ridiculed for reading a book and a person with straight A’s shouldn’t be ridiculed for denying a book. 

Absolutely anyone can enjoy escaping in a good book.