Reading Changed My Life - Townsend Press

Reading Changed My Life! Three True Storiesstamps! You can’t amount to anything on yourown!” he told her. But Maria proved him wrong.Back in Florida, she worked all day in the fields anduntil midnight at the supermarket. She kept up thepayments on her car, didn’t go on welfare, and felthappy and proud of herself.One worry, though, kept pushing itself into hermind. Antonietta was growing up and beginningkindergarten. She did well there. Maria loved itwhen Antonietta would come home with her littlebooks, hand them to her mom, and say, “Read tome.” But as Maria read the simple books, she keptthinking ahead. Some day, before too long,Antonietta was going to come home with booksthat were too hard for her to read. What would shethink when her mother said, “I can’t read it”? Mariawondered. And what would Maria think of herself?Maria had heard there were programs thattaught adults to read. But in some ways, she wasstill as scared and shy as she had been as a little girl.16