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[CCBC-Net] Influential books
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From: WriterBabe at aol.com <WriterBabe>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 16:17:22 EDT
I can't possibly pick the most influential book, but I can name a few that had a big effect on me when I was a kid. One is titleless--or rather, I can't remember the title. It was a Little Golden book collection of children's poems with stuff by R.L. Stevenson, Elinor Wylie, and others. My parents read it to me regularly, upon request. It absolutely created my love of poetry
(well, that, and the pop hits my dad sang to me every night). I also begged for frequent readings of fairy tales and they have certainly affected me to this day.
Those were books my folks bought for me. The influential books I remember getting out of the library when I was older are Lamb's TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE.
I just loved, loved, loved the stories, and they made me want to read the plays. By the time I DID read them, I was more than ready to love them, too
(though I still didn't get much of the language). To this day, Shakespeare is my favorite author, bar none.
On the opposite extreme, I adored Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family books. I'm Jewish and I was born in the Bronx, so to read about real Jewish girls in NYC thrilled me to the core, albeit from a time well before my own. That time seemed so much richer and more interesting than my world, which at that point was N. Massapequa (or Matzoh-pizza, as we called it, although later Jerry Seinfeld would say it was Native America for "next to the mall"), a pretty dull town in my view, and made me long to be back in the city. I eventually did move back and I'm still here, though now in Brooklyn.
I also bought every single Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on and I honestly think they showed me how to write plot (when I choose to write plot), plus they had a real feminist icon in charge.
So, those are some of the influential books on my list. And hey, this was fun to recollect and write!
Marilyn Singer
_www.marilynsinger.net_ (http://www.marilynsinger.net)
Received on Tue 23 May 2006 03:17:22 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 16:17:22 EDT
I can't possibly pick the most influential book, but I can name a few that had a big effect on me when I was a kid. One is titleless--or rather, I can't remember the title. It was a Little Golden book collection of children's poems with stuff by R.L. Stevenson, Elinor Wylie, and others. My parents read it to me regularly, upon request. It absolutely created my love of poetry
(well, that, and the pop hits my dad sang to me every night). I also begged for frequent readings of fairy tales and they have certainly affected me to this day.
Those were books my folks bought for me. The influential books I remember getting out of the library when I was older are Lamb's TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE.
I just loved, loved, loved the stories, and they made me want to read the plays. By the time I DID read them, I was more than ready to love them, too
(though I still didn't get much of the language). To this day, Shakespeare is my favorite author, bar none.
On the opposite extreme, I adored Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family books. I'm Jewish and I was born in the Bronx, so to read about real Jewish girls in NYC thrilled me to the core, albeit from a time well before my own. That time seemed so much richer and more interesting than my world, which at that point was N. Massapequa (or Matzoh-pizza, as we called it, although later Jerry Seinfeld would say it was Native America for "next to the mall"), a pretty dull town in my view, and made me long to be back in the city. I eventually did move back and I'm still here, though now in Brooklyn.
I also bought every single Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on and I honestly think they showed me how to write plot (when I choose to write plot), plus they had a real feminist icon in charge.
So, those are some of the influential books on my list. And hey, this was fun to recollect and write!
Marilyn Singer
_www.marilynsinger.net_ (http://www.marilynsinger.net)
Received on Tue 23 May 2006 03:17:22 PM CDT
