Gierke 1

Bradi Gierke
Storycraft
Personal Narrative Reflection

I decided to step out of my comfort zone again tonight, and I am very glad I did. I
attended a literary event that focused on a personal narrative. This personal narrative told the
story of an Asian family who moved to a mostly white suburb in Texas. Not only did this family
feel out of sync with their community but with their own family members as well. Each of the
family members had made the move at different times, the dad first, followed by the mom, then
both children one at a time. The parents worked most of the day, leaving their son to raise their
youngest child. But their youngest child wasn’t normal. She was an eight-year-old girl that slept
walked most nights. Not just around the house, but she made it outside into the road several
times! This left all the other family members restless. None of them could sleep without being
afraid that she would get outside and have something terrible happen to her.

Little did they know all this time they would spend together awake at night would bring
them much closer together. This time is what they needed to grow closer. The book takes us on
an incredible journey through each family member’s eyes, unlike most personal narratives that
just include one point of view. Sadly, the parents try to avoid conversations about them being
different as often as possible when the kids bring it up. They also try sweeping their history from
Asia under the rug anytime it comes up. But, as time goes on, they learn that their history is
what made them who they are today and got them to the United States. Eventually, they tell
their children their story, and it takes a great toll on their son. He starts to be more confident in
his own skin, especially at school. The book presents a great lesson on how to make the best of
being different.

I was surprised by how deep this personal narrative got and how many different
perspectives it included. It also chose to depict several different events rather than just focus on
one, which I appreciated. Sometimes books can drag out one event, and it becomes boring. I
was also surprised at how much I could relate to the son in some of the scenes. The author did
an amazing job describing each character’s personal thoughts and feelings, so it almost felt like
you were there in their head. I learned that you really can use being different to your advantage.
The boy started using his uniqueness to his advantage at school and turned out to be quite
popular. They also started appreciating the daughter’s sleepwalking tendencies because they
used their time at night to talk. I learned a lot about finding the silver lining in things after
attending this event, which is always a good lesson to learn.

I left the event with a new appreciation for a new type of book. It turns out I could enjoy
other genres than murder mysteries! The author of this book and the other author present at the
event answered a lot of my questions without even meaning to. They talked about how hard it is
to write about your own family members and even yourself. The author says it’s a real challenge
to figure out what you need to censor. In this book, however, he chose not to censor much. He
said the story would not convey the message he wanted it to if he censored the sensitive parts
of his life. The authors also touched on how hard choosing a title can be. I was wondering how
 Gierke 2

professionals did this. Personally, I usually tend to write my story then choose a title based on
the content. I found that these two particular authors do the same! It was kind of cool hearing
published authors with the same writing techniques as me. It makes you feel like you’re doing
something right! I plan to read other books from this same author in the future and hopefully
learn some other valuable life lessons.