From: Neal Porter <nporter>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 00:44:22 -0400

Certainly Harriet the Spy, and the books of Edward Eager, as well as those of James Thurber (I swooned over The Wonderful O and The Thirteen Clocks). And especially The Phantom Tollbooth, which I must have read a dozen times, never failing to break into helpless giggles. And oh yes, The 21 Balloons. Seems like a pattern is emerging . . .

But in 1964 (a year after it won the Newbery) I was given a copy of A Wrinkle In Time for my birthday and THAT was life-changing. Gender notwithstanding I WAS Meg--bookish, aloof, unruly. And I spent the next year trying to tesseract.

Fifteen years later I went to work at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and asked Madeleine to sign that battered, dog-eared book. And I still have it, with her graceful inscription across from my childish scrawl:

This book belongs to

Neal Porter




On 5/23/06 11:04 PM, "ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu"
<ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu> wrote:

> Send CCBC-Net mailing list submissions to
> ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> ccbc-net-owner at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of CCBC-Net digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. lifechanging books/and a secret stash (Shutta Crum)
> 2. Re: What book has changed your life? (Kathy Johnson)
> 3. Life-changing books (Ruth I. Gordon)
> 4. life changing books (Miriam Lang Budin)
> 5. Re: What book has changed your life? (Hitch-Bradley)
> 6. NSW Premier's Literary Awards (Judith Ridge)
> 7. Re: What book has changed your life? (Geringer, Jennifer)
> 8. life-changing books (judy.schachter at comcast.net)
> 9. Re: What book has changed your life? (Betty Tisel)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 20:27:27 -0400
> From: "Shutta Crum" <shutta at shuttacrum.com>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] lifechanging books/and a secret stash
> To: <CCBC-Net at ccbc.ad.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <200605240027.k4O0Rc903068 at gloria.siteprotect.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> A couple of really important books/authors come to mind:
>
> 1. MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN by Jean Craighead George--read when I was 12.
> Made me realize that almost all kids want to run away at some point in their
> lives (and live in a tree) . . . because, God knows, I couldn't be a
> natural child of this crazy family! Didn't we all feel like that when we
> were 12?
>
> 2. My uncle's collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs, which he loaned me--esp.
> the John Carter of Mars series. Made me love science fiction, so I could
> move on to Heinlein, Asimov, etc.
>
> 3. Mrs. Meabon's library of ALL 60+ of the Zane Gray books in red vellum
> with gold lettering. She loaned me just 2 at a time. Romantic American
> popularization of the West (which trod over anything, or anyone, in the
> way)--blech!--but still, I realized these books taught me how to make
> pictures in my mind.
>
> 4. My mother's secret stash of what I thought were "dirty" books (paperbacks
> with the covers ripped off). As a 7th-grader I snuck into her drawer and
> read and reread several of them, only later to discover I'd read: GONE WITH
> THE WIND, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, AFRICAN QUEEN, etc . . . . what a
> treasure!!! (And, though I wasn't a reluctant reader, I've often thought
> this might be a good way to get reluctant readers reading. HAH!)
>
> 5. And recently . . . in 1982? When Cynthia Rylant's book WHEN I WAS YOUNG
> IN THE MOUNTAINS came out . . . I thought, DANG! Someone's gone and written
> MY personal story . . . how dare she? (Now, SOOOOOOO glad she did!) This
> book changed my adult life--I realized that if I wanted to tell my stories,
> I better get my butt in gear . . . It was the impetus to get me writing
> children's books. (And a whole new career after my retirement from the
> library in 2004.)
>
> 6.--? Looking forward to the next one that will change my life! What joy.
>
>
>
> Shutta Crum
>
> (Bravest of the Brave, Knopf)
> www.shutta.com
> http://blog.shuttacrum.com
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 21:10:14 -0400
> From: Kathy Johnson <kmquimby at sover.net>
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] What book has changed your life?
> To: MNevett at aol.com, ccbc-net at ccbc.ad.education.wisc.edu
> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20060523204650.01b80cf0 at mail.sover.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> Harriet the Spy would be number one on my list, too. I must have checked it
> out of my library (far smaller than any branch of Brooklyn Public)
> regularly for three or four years. As a young reader I completely
> overlooked her flaws and focused on the spying part of her activity.
> Something like ten years ago, an essay in the New York Times Book Review,
> gave me a clue as to why. This essay looked at Harriet, Jo March, and Anne
> Shirley (I think those were the others) as writers in preparation.
> Harriet's spying honed observational skills.
>
> Harriet was also a great source of comfort to a generally lonely child.
> There were all of eight students in my grade, and I often felt like an
> outsider; knowing that a child in the city could feel just as isolated
> helped. The tomato sandwiches and the long, long hot baths were ambrosia
> and nirvanah, to be dreamed of.
>
> So much of the rest of it went right over my head at the time. This was
> definitely one of those books I looked at differently when I read it as an
> adult. However, it was also one of those rare works where I could see what
> had attracted me as a child, as well as the "real" story.
>
> Kathy Quimby
>
>
> At 06:43 PM 5/23/2006, MNevett at aol.com wrote:
>> Life changing books-
>> 1) Harriet the Spy- first book I ever read featuring a main character who
>> was extremely flawed- PLUS, I was the first one to check it out of my
>> branch of
>> Brooklyn Public- I should have known I was a future librarian to get such a
>> thrill out of that!
>> 2) The Princess and the Goblin- the librarian who recommended this to me had
>> a nametag- his name was Mr. MacDonald. I was awed and honored that he
>> "chose" me to read his book- and was too modest to claim it as his. It
>> wasn't until
>> I was enrolled in library school, taking History of Children's lit, that I
>> found out the truth. Luckily I wasn' t devastated, and was able to
>> appreciate
>> how special I had felt back then! He was inadvertently a role model for me as
>> a children's librarian.
>> 3)Pentimento by Lillian Hellman- I was actually an adult when I realized
>> authors could lie, and even some non-fiction, particularly autobiography,
>> could
>> be fiction!
>> the list could go on and on and on....
>> Micki
>>
>>
>> Micki S. Nevett
>> Westmere Elementary School
>> Guilderland Central School District
>> Albany, NY 12203
>> nevettm at guilderlandschools.org
>> mnevett at aol.com
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CCBC-Net mailing list
>> CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
>> Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
>> http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 18:26:43 -0700
> From: "Ruth I. Gordon" <druthgo at sonic.net>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] Life-changing books
> To: CCBC Net <ccbc-net at ccbc.ad.education.wisc.edu>
> Message-ID: <3D906B3A-C534-4544-B0EE-6A1E3DD5C6C2 at sonic.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> Younger folk are so lucky to have had "Harriet, the Spy," "A Taste of
> Blackberries," "Captain Underpants," "Dorp Dead," "Hey! Dollface",
> and so many of the fine new books. I was fortunate to be able to
> "teach," i.e., discuss them with the children's book classes (I
> still refuse to call it "Literature" since time determines that) at
> a university or two. I was really lucky to be able to present M.B.
> Goffstein's sharply carved jewels to younger and older children as
> well as hosts of other titles, novels, nonfiction, and picture books.
>
> Someday, we'll all sit down for a drink or two and relate stories
> about the effects of the books on those with whom we worked. It was
> an honor and a great pleasure--a gift to us.
>
> Big Grandma (who seems to be growing older by the minute)
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 21:38:31 -0400
> From: "Miriam Lang Budin" <miriammeister at gmail.com>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] life changing books
> To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
> Message-ID:
> <cd260cf10605231838k5480f7aal6a138f8957651e2 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> It's hard to choose, but so much fun to remember!
>
> When I was about ten I came across a museum catalog from an exhibition of
> photographs, possibly from the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, on my parents'
> bookshelves. It was called THE FAMILY OF MAN and had all the black and
> white photos from the exhibition and accompanying quotations from great
> works of literature, sacred texts, etc. The photos depicted a wide range of
> people from around the world and spoke to me of the universality of the
> human experience. Birth, death, grief, joy, work, play, grinding poverty,
> celebration, sensuality, anger, and so much more were vividly depicted.
>
> I loved reading Lewis Carroll's ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND and THROUGH
> THE LOOKING GLASS on an annual basis. Every spring I would go through them
> again because with each re-reading I got more of the humor, word-play and
> logic. I liked knowing that I was growing in my understanding of them.
>
> I, too, adored THE BORROWERS. I had had an imaginary friend just their
> supposed size and thought Mary Norton and I were on the same wavelength.
>
> And--oh--those Edward Eager books! The possiblity of magic entering my
> prosaic, suburban life kept hope ever green. Plus, I loved the Bodecker
> illustrations.
>
> In high school CATCH 22 had a profound effect on my perception of the
> absurdity of war.
>
> I could go on and on, but I won't!
>
> Miriam
>
Received on Tue 23 May 2006 11:44:22 PM CDT