Alan Lawrence Sitomer is an author, a California Teacher of the Year award winner and the founder of the Writer’s Success Academy. In addition to having been an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Sitomer is a nationally renowned keynote speaker who specializes in engaging underperforming students. Sitomer recently wrote an essay for our Open a World of Possible initiative which we've repurposed here. The full version is also available in our new Open a World of Possible book, which you can download for free here.
When I was a teen drowning in a sea of troubles, the waves of adolescent life crashing over my head, I cried to the heavens, “Someone, please throw me a life preserver!” A life preserver never came but the universe did toss me a book. It was heavy but it hoisted me up.
When I was a first-year teacher in the inner city—lost, brought to tears, brought to my knees, brought to the breaking point—I cried to the heavens, “Someone, please give me a tool!”
A tool never came but the universe did toss me a book. It wasn’t made of steel but it empowered me to forge ahead.
When I’ve had crises of faith, when I’ve hadignorance to squash, when I’ve had a need to fill my soul with joy and laughs and humor and hope, I would call to the heavens, “Someone, please deliver to me the stuff for which my spirit aches.”
And each time the offering was the same: the universe tossed me a book. The books came in many shapes. They came in many sizes. They came with different jackets, perspectives, and voices, yet they came and they came and they came.
And they still keep comin’.
Our universe is filled with a medicine that cannot be found in bottles, hypodermic needles, or pills. Indeed, the remedy for many of life’s maladies can be found in books.
Our universe is filled with magic, the stuff of dragons and wands and sorcerers. Indeed, the secret to all that cannot be readily seen can be readily experienced in books.
Sometimes, I dine on movies. Other times, I’ll nibble at TV. Indubitably, I’ll gobble down the Internet. But when it comes time for a true banquet, a feast for my mind and spirit, there is no other nourishment quite like a book.
The only real disappointment I’ve ever had with books is that there aren’t enough years on this planet for me to read all the ones I’d like to. Yet from my “glass is half full” perspective, this means books will be with me to my dying day.
And how many things in life can we really say that about? Books, I love you!
