In his essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie claimed that it was reading and knowledge which saved his life. Because, besides reading and books, his family and background were the same as other Indians who lived on the reservation: poor and underprivileged. Alexie then recalled how his father read as many books as possible, which made himself a role model to the author. Under his father’s influence, Alexie picked up books before he could read. Although he couldn’t understand the meanings, he had the concept of the paragraph and related it to the reality that paragraphs were fences that separated different groups of people. Just like Indians were separated from the main society belonged to white people. The first time Alexie learned to read was by assuming what might Superman said in a comic picture.