People often ask me, “Violet, why do you like Garfield so much?” And I search the inner folds of my brain to find an answer. It does not appear. 

After a recent visit to the children’s section in the library, it came flooding back. It all started with my sibling and his love for books. Every week he would beg my mom to take us to the library to get new books to read because he had finished the ones we had gotten five days ago. I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as him about reading because I was younger and was slower at reading so sometimes it was difficult to finish all the books we had gotten the week prior.

One day as I walked through the graphic novel section, I stumbled across a very special set of books, I took one off the shelf and started to read. 

These books were perfect for me to learn how to be a better reader. There was a minimal amount of words on the page and there were many stories to experience and laugh at. That day, I checked a few out, and to my surprise, I finished my books faster than my brother which was very exciting. So after that, I continued to check them out, and I took them wherever I went. If I was going to my grandparents’ house I had my books with me. If I was going to the dentist I had my books with me, even when I went on a trip out of state, I had my very precious books with me.

 If you haven’t caught on yet, the books that I found that day were Garfield books. Garfield was a very large part of my childhood, and I really loved that little orange cat, but as I grew up I lost that connection to Garfield and moved on to more advanced books. I would see him here and there, it wasn’t very consistent, but around the start of this year he appeared on my explore page on Instagram, and I immediately fell back into the Garfield lifestyle. Now every day I post Garfield on my Instagram story so I can share my love of Garfield with everyone.