Love Of Reading 89

Love Of Reading
Story 1

The Right to Read and Write

Fifteen year old Tarkan was expelled from school last year. He still cannot read or
write. Since his parents cannot support him, he is desperately in need of a job.
Will he get a decent job so that he could be self-sufficient? The chances are that he is
likely to be cheated at every step because he cannot read or write.
All those years at school and yet illiterate? How could it be possible? Well, it
happened to Tarkan because he felt that his teacher did not help him to overcome his
difficulty in reading.
The teacher also overlooked the constant taunting his classmates subjected him to over
his poor performance. As a plea for help, longing for sympathy and attention, he
began to misbehave and regularly played truant. He felt let down by his school
education.
The teacher had to cope with fifty students in the class. Was Tarkan justified in now
blaming him for what happened?
Fortunately, Tarkan is being helped by a caring neighbour who owns a garage. He
will soon have him on his feet. Tarkan is learning to read and write from the owner’s
school-going son and earning his keep by cleaning the garage owner’s home as well as
the workshop.
He is also observing the work of the mechanics and picking up the technique of
repairing cars. It won’t be long before he learns to recognize different parts of
machinery and to make his own notes.

Story 2

A Mysterious Friend

We were eight friends. The eldest one was twelve; the youngest one was nine years
old. In our group everyone had different skills and character. Actually, everyone had
different characteristic. Someone was good at running; someone was good at
swimming, climbing, arm wrestling, etc. Namely, everyone had different superiority.
For that reason, it was not possible for an ordinary person to join us.
We used to like summer.
For us summer was to swim, entertain, play games and go for a walk. But in our
village there was a weird boy who was saying that he liked school life.
Sometimes we were seeing each other. But he was silent and well-balanced that’s
why, we were calling him coward. We were going for a walk with our group but he
always was alone.
Our power was different. If we were somewhere our atmosphere was there, I mean
we were very happy everywhere, we had the biggest power in the village. In the
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village, All children were feeling admiration for us. By the way, Also they had been
afraid of us.
Three guys from our group had come from the city, so our showing-off was good
enough. Our village was too close to the city, that’s why many people had to work in
the city. They didn’t have too much village work in the village so we were amusing
ourselves too much.
Near our village there were rock caves, there was a river down the rock caves. This
river was very important for our village.

There was a suspension bridge to go to another village facing our village. It was
another beauty of our village. In fact, river, suspension bridge and rock caves were the
source of excitement. In the afternoons we were swimming like fish in the river. At
the same time we were trying to learn all types of swimming. I was good at turning a
somersault from the rock into the river. Serkan was good at jumping into the river by
shouting like a crazy. Ramsey was good at diving into the river. Ahmad was good at
being under the water for a long time. The others were good at different styles of
swimming.
In short, we were trying to do all the dangerous things in the river. But there was a guy
in our village. He didn’t use to join us. He was swimming far from us after he put on
his clothes then he was going alone to the village.
From our group everybody knew how to fish with a hook and line. Sometimes we
were fishing many fish but I didn’t see that guy while he was fishing.
However, he was fishing big size fish from somewhere but we didn’t know and see
him. We never used to believe him how he caught these fish, because he was silent
and looked timid. We thought that it was impossible for him to catch these kind of big
size fish.
One day he was passing closely and, he had many big fish in his hand and I shouted
at Hasan scornfully, “Did you fish with a hook and line?” He said seriously, “I caught
with my hand.” Then all of my friends started to laugh at him teasingly. But he was
quiet and serious as usual, he didn’t say anything and went away.
By the way we had also thought to follow him stealthily, since we wanted to
understand his mysterious behaviour.
One day in the afternoon we had gathered to have a good time near the rock caves.
Everybody had brought their own pop gun as before we decided.
Because we had wanted to hunt lizards, killing lizards with pop gun was giving us
enjoyment we went to the rocks with pop guns in our hands when we found lizards,
first of all we were breaking off their tails then hunting with guns. Actually we were
having this fun regularly.
Once our mysterious friend Hasan had shouted at us and said, “You all are brutal, put
yourselves in their shoes, if you had mercy, you would not harm them.”
But I had said, “Hey you coward! You are filled with envy to us.” After that he had
spoken, “I do not envy you and I am not afraid of you, I am also ready to contest with
you in everything.”
We all were very surprised what Hasan said. For the first time we had seen how he
was excited, It was alluring and interesting what Hasan said.
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We stopped hunting lizards and came down, we were in pursuit of adventure because
we were curious about his scolding, then we gathered around him, Serkan said, “Tell
us what kind of contests you want.”
After that Hasan said, “I don’t know may be swimming, climbing or fishing. If you
trust in yourselves we can contest in different things.” In the end we decided to contest
with Hasan.
Anyone from our group could contest with him. It wasn’t fair but he had wanted to
contest like that. Our first contest would be fishing. If one person caught many fish in
thirty minutes he would win.
Second contest would be high jump from the rock into the river. If one person jumped
from the highest of the rock into the river he would win this contest.
Third contest would be swimming. If one person crossed the river from one to another
by swimming, he would win this contest.
The last contest would be climbing up the rocks. In this contest the rule was to climb
up the highest point and earlier than the another.
First contest would be tomorrow. But before the contest, every side has got some
different requests, basically we wanted to have fun.
That’s why we didn’t need any requests, we would teach him a lesson. It was great for
us. Hasan had two different requests, and he would explain his requests at the end of
the contests.
But we had only one request. We had explained there. If we won, it was certain,
Hasan would explain in front of the children that, he was a coward and we were
superior and bold.
In the contest there was another condition. Hasan had driven forward this condition.
All the contests would be in front of the some seniors from the village, namely the
seniors would be referee. Before contest we got ready and spoke everything together
what to do. That night before contests I was so excited. Finally morning came and the
sun rose up our group with eight friends had come near the river as we decided.
It was nearly exact time for the first contest, everybody was ready there. Seniors from
the village had come too. We all came near the river, that had plenty of fish.
First contest started under the control of the seniors. Our friend Tarkan caught ten fish
in thirty minutes using hook. After our friend Tarkan, Hasan started to fish. He said he
wouldn’t use hook. He wanted to go under the water to catch the fish. He dived
several times and caught twenty seven fish.
Unfortunately in the first round he had won. By God there were three contests left.
After one hour we found suitable rocks for jumping into the river. Everyone wanted to
show bravery, that’s why everyone was trying to jump from high places.
While I was jumping I was very afraid. Everyone had already jumped except Hasan.
We were sure we would win. But Hasan went up to the highest point of rock and
jumped into the river.
In the second contest he had won again. That time we were very surprised. After that
seniors told that third contest would be tomorrow. We all went our homes.
I was feeling anxiety, I had made light of him, I thought he was a coward but because
of him our power would be finished. We tried not to show that we were loosing
power. Hasan was like nightmare for us.
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The next day would be swimming contest. After one day in the afternoon, we came
near the river as we decided. It was the widest place of the river everybody was in the
queue along the river. If one person reached the another side of the river he would win
the contest.
After the contest had started then there was shouting and noise in the river. After some
minutes one of our friends was shouting because we had won this contest. Oktay one
of our friends had won this contest, in fact he had learnt how to swim in the city. Our
last contest would be climbing up the rocks, we were too tired that’s why we decided
to do last contest the next day. At last our last contest time had come. We came near
the rocks we knew this place very well.
After seniors made a sign then we started to climb up the rocks our friends were so
nimble, we were climbing up the rock very well, by the way our opponent Hasan had
started to climb up the rocks from a very steep place, but it was short cut to reach the
apex of the rocks.
It was a very dangerous place. We shouted at him not to climb but he didn’t listen to
us and went on climbing, we were afraid that he would kill himself. Any way he was
going on climbing, at the same time I was angry with myself why we did a contest like
this.
After some minutes we heard a voice, it was Hasan; He had finished contest and he
was beckoning with regret that we had lost these contests, namely we were beaten and
it seemed hard for us.
We congratulate him on contests and He left. After these defeats we all gathered and
remembered what we promised Hasan, we all came up near Hasan and I started to
speak as a spokesman of our group, “Hasan you beat us.
We will fulfil your wish but don’t bring forward some conditions that loose our
power in front of the other children in our village ,we can do everything except this. I
mean, don’t make us look small please.” Hasan was so calm and he said, “Hey, guys I
am not going to humiliate you in front of the other children, on the contrary I have got
demands to make you very honourable.”
We couldn’t believe his last sentence and he added, “Friends! My first wish; after this
time I want you not to cause trouble and beat children in the village.” In fact I was so
happy while Hasan was speaking. Hasan continued speaking, “Your group’s aim must
be to help the other people. For that reason, let’s call your group “benevolent” or
different name. We were impatient and we wanted him to tell his another demand and
he started to speak again, “Friends! Sometimes you were not seeing me outside, do
you know what I am doing when you don’t see me. I am reading different kinds of
books in the bedroom or in the garden under the trees.
For that reason my mind and heart are getting useful things. As you know friends, we
are having meal three times a day. Because our body needs nourishment and also our
brain, mind and heart need nourishment too.
Nourishment of mind, heart and soul, useful information, and honourable feelings are
good manners. If we don’t learn useful things, bad manners will come to our mind. A
guy can’t spend his days by wandering here and there. I mean we need games but
there must be limit in it.” Hasan was talking like an adult. All he talked, looked
resonable.
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In fact when we have holiday we are not interested in reading anything. I was trying to
understand Hasan.
By the way he was teaching us a lesson about how to spend our holidays. He
continued: “Friends, my second demand, why don’t we gather in our garden to read
some books like novels, some supplimentary books for lessons and even sports
books.”
“How are we going to get these books?” one of my friends asked.Hasan said, “I think
everybody has got pocket money, why don’t we buy a book and give it to our friend as
a present?”
We accepted his second demand, the next day in their garden we gathered and Hasan
brought a big box and started to give out books to each guy.
I started reading a book it was “Little Prince” I had been bored a little. After a couple
days reading books had started to tickle my fancy. Hasan was a clever boy. The first
day he didn’t make us read too much, after 45 minutes “Friends! That’s all for today,
may be we can go to the lake and swim there, even I can show you some techniques of
swimming.” he said.
Many weeks passed. We were spending our vacation by swimming, wandering,
playing games and of course reading books, and we started to be good guys, because
of reading useful books those books had affected our manners.
I understood that reading useful books had been teaching us good manners, Hasan was
right because after giving the real nourishment to our heart, mind and soul we started
to become like adults. Soon after we had started to love reading books, sometimes
Hasan was giving us some books of good manners and useful things.I couldn’t
understand how our vacation had passed this summer.
We were very surprised because we had changed too much in a short time, and we
were very grateful to Hasan and also we were very lucky to have a friend like Hasan
who was honest, well-bred, good- tempered and brave,In the end we chose him as our
leader and we promised each other how well we would spend our vacation.
We were successful in our classes, that’s why in every summer vacation we were
enjoying reading, wandering, swimming and playing games.

Proverbs

Learn weeping, and you shall gain laughing.

What’s learnt in the cradle lasts till the tomb.
Never too late to learn.
All’s well that ends well.
Think on the end before you begin.
Good men suffer much.
Good things are hard.
He is wise that is honest.
Knowledge is power.