Since I want to be an English teacher, I want to have a small library (in more literal terms, a bookcase) filled with great reads that my students can borrow anytime they want. A lot of times, and I remember this happening to me very often, young people get discouraged when they randomly choose a book from the library, and well, it stinks. They might try again, and they might not. When I was in third grade, our teacher had this same kind of small library system where we could sign out books and bring them back in for new ones. It made us feel a little more grown-up knowing that our teacher trusted us to check them out and bring them back on our own. It was in that class that I discovered many beloved books like:
The Cricket in Time Square by George Seldon
Roald Dahl's James in the Giant Peach, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, and George's Marvelous Medicine (my mom later introduced me to Boy, his autobiographical book of childhood, which {FUN FACT!} - is the book that Meg Ryan is reading during storytime in "You've Got Mail")
Donald Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown series
I'm smiling as I type these titles and see the familiar book covers again. Nora Ephron is definitely correct in saying that reading as a child defines us in no other way, and it stays with us forever! Just seeing the spine of one of these familiar books takes me back into the world within.
Later, in middle school, I would discover books on my own in the library and read the suggestions for "Battle of the Books." Although I wouldn't always participate in the "battles," I would love reading the books on the lists. Some of my favorite reads during my middle school years were:
Walk Two Moons by Mary Lou Finney
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
A View from Saturday by E.L. Kognisburg
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Kognisburg
Superfudge by Judy Bloom
Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little by E.B. White
Shiloh by Phyllis Naylor
The Best School Year Ever by Robinson
Holes by Louis Sacher
Even later, as I was getting a bit too "old" for YA books (which, what does that really mean??), I took a YA Lit class in college and discovered even more!
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
Maximum Ride series by James Paterson
Maximum Ride series by James Paterson
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Sarah Dessen's books
The Series of Unfortunate Events series by Daniel Handler
Spiderwick series by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
*What are some of your favorite Young Adult books?!
Ah.... I loved Roald Dahl growing up!!... and I read all the Ramona books and watched the videos religiously, lol. I was also a big fan of the Sweet Valley Twins books...and of course, R.L. Stine books (haha, maybe that explains why I watch CourtTV so much now, lol).
ReplyDeleteBrings back so many good memories! :)
Chelsea
Doesn't it?! I didn't read the Sweet Valley Twins, or the R.L. Stine books (my parents actually didn't allow me to bring home the Goosebumps books...and I didn't really want to...I think they thought I would have nightmares!) That probably does explain your obsession with CourTV though! See, childhood reading defines us forever!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Chelsea! : )
While reading this I couldn't think of what I read while little and then a few came back to me - other than Narnia most books are pretty fuzzy. I remember reading different Zorro books and the Ghostwriter series. Honestly I didn't discover much that I wanted to read until high school (for my last year I did a great books emphasis which probably did define me).
ReplyDeleteI recall a lot of frustration though at not knowing what to leave on the shelf. My middle years were spent trying to work on a comic book with my friend Matthew so I was hunting through all sorts of strange things. Personally I wish that I had run into some of the works that I'm reading now a lot earlier (MacDonald for example).
This is the reaction I hear from most guys I know (including my husband). He reads all the time now, but that didn't start until the end of high school. Maybe reading at a young age is pushed on girls when they are little, while boys are supposed to be out playing and building things. My brother doesn't enjoy reading and neither did either of my grandfathers or dad. My mom was the one who encouraged me to read because she enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI already told you, Josiah, but I think I'll share it again for other readers. I brought home the first book of the Narnia series during that same 3rd grade class I discussed in this post. My mom had read that C.S. Lewis was an atheist (which he was before his conversion) and told me not to read it. Haha!! Oh, if we had only had the handy-dandy Internet to Google it! I have since then gone back to read several of the books, but I missed out on reading them through a child's-eye view. I plan on reading them to our children one day though!
Thanks for sharing Josiah : )
I read a lot of the Greats in High School and had some small appreciation for them (works I need to revisit: War and Peace, Anna Karenina, etc.) but growing up I didn't find many good books.
ReplyDeleteThe Ghostwriter series now shows my age, haha. I seem to remember some other Christian teen books that are thoroughly forgettable. While reading was a pretty common part of my early education and I tried to read for enjoyment, it wasn't until my sophomore year at Valley Forge that I began to find things that I really wanted to reread. (Perhaps some of that had to do with my immersion in cartoons and sports? Or perhaps it is because I didn't understand what I was looking for.)
Of course Oxford supercharged my desire to 'catch up' to all that I have been missing. Whereas I had been slowly finding works that required my attention (I remember that Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Lewis, and Dostoevsky were on the docket waiting for my return that Summer of '08), it finally struck me while at Oxford how deeply Lewis (and the others) drew from the well of great sources. That was the beginning of a great journey for I finally understand not only how far behind I am, but also where to go to find what it is that I don't know.
You're welcome, Jade - thanks for posting interesting thoughts!
I too found in Oxford that I was a little behind on my reading (which my mother could not understand because she had spent my entire childhood telling me to stop reading and come eat something or go to bed...)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel like I could spend the rest of my life just reading the classics (in order to "catch up"), without even touching the great new fiction coming out each day. But I know this task would be impossible for me because I love so many new writers!! So I just don't think we should get stressed out or feel that we are behind; instead everyday we should continue the task of reading books that will better us and help us (in your words) "find what it is that [we] don't know."
I think Mortimer Adler has it right: the ideal approach to reading or to listening is to attempt to 'come to terms' with the author/speaker. That is, we should attempt to understand what key terms mean for a given author (assuming it is a work worth putting the time in for). I feel like I have that comfort now with Lewis' material & I enjoy his work considerably more now.
ReplyDeleteSo many great philosophers drew from the classics: Nietzsche's 'Birth of Tragedy', Kierkegaard wrote his thesis on indirect communication ala Socrates, and Dante uses so many 'inside jokes' that he is impossible to understand without helps.
Oh, I remembered a horrifying childhood experience recently which I now find quite humourous. I was fairly obsessed with Robin Hood when I was little. Perhaps this is the danger of watching the movie first...but I really enjoyed the epic of Robin Hood the Fox and would watch the Mr. Magoo version as well. Finally I found the real tales on a shelf! To the horror of my little eyes, Robin Hood *gasp* dies - and not some heroic death, but a death by trickery. He is betrayed by his female cousin (how could she do that - my cousins are like siblings to me?) and bleeds to death. I still feel the pang of that a little, although I can laugh at it now.
Do you know what I mean though? The myths are transformed in our heads into something more modernized. When I read the Arthurian legend, it is unconcerned with what I want to hear about. I want to hear about the drama of plotting for battle and the details of who by skill took down the other. I want to picture the sweat on their faces and hear their words as despair turns to triumph. However, my expectations aren't the purpose of these authors. If I can enjoy the process of coming to terms with their intent, I may just learn to expand my enjoyment.
That's also why I feel that I just didn't know how to look for good books as a kid - I ended up reading adventure books and reading them once whereas the classics I feel I should be reading for the rest of my life.