From: WMMayes at aol.com <WMMayes>
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:14:02 -0400 (EDT)

I've been giving this some thought. Many books I loved as a kid do not hold up for me as an adult. Chief among them is A WRINKLE IN TIME. I worshiped that book and read it dozens of times between the ages of 8 and 14. When I became a children's bookseller I was happy to handsell it and it's sequels.
 When I went to work for Ms. L'engle's paperback publisher I was thrilled to be on the "inside" and got to read several of her new books in manuscript form, though none of them held me the way WRINKLE had.

Upon reading MANY WATERS and strongly disliking it, I was impelled to reread the Time Trilogy to see where I thought she'd lost me. I was shocked to find that there was a level of allegory to her storytelling I had been oblivious to as a young reader. Suddenly I could see a Christian overlay to elements in the tale where previously I had not, and it bothered me tremendously. I felt tricked, duped, as if I had been force?d religious teachings on the sly (don't even get me started on Narnia!!!) and now, as a non-Christian adult I was angry, though not so much at Ms. L'engle as at myself for having lost the ability to see a story for it's beauty and terrific storytelling cause I got all hepped up about someone being "pushy" with their religious beliefs.

However, many of my childhood classics are still treasured:

HOMER PRICE THE FORGOTTEN DOOR by Alexander Key WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE THE PIGMAN

I am having a great deal of fun sharing these and other titles with my son, now eight.

Walter the Giant Storyteller WMMayes at aol.com

"Love, Food, Shelter, Clothing...Books!"
Received on Mon 07 Jul 1997 05:14:02 PM CDT