From: Almagor, Lelac <LAlmagor>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 08:40:04 -0400

I think I read Black Beauty an average of once a week over the course of my childhood. I was one of those horse-crazy kids with precious few real-life friends, so maybe the idea that the horses really knew, cared about, and judged me was somehow consoling.

But actually the books that changed me in childhood were grownup novels
-- Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear and Perri Klass's Other Women's Children. (I've mentioned before, I think, that I wasn't exposed to much actual young-adult literature.) Auel's character Ayla -- with her superhuman toughness and integrity -- was a not-half-bad role model, and Klass's protagonist was my first exposure to a realistic adult heroine whose life seemed like one I might someday want to live. Because of Klass, for years I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician; later I figured out that it was just that I wanted to be a grownup, passionate about work, passionate about family, self-conscious but also competent.


Ms. Lelac Almagor Grade Five English Writing Center National Cathedral School for Girls www.ncsforgirls.org/lalmagor/ lalmagor at cathedral.org 202-537-2312
Received on Wed 24 May 2006 07:40:04 AM CDT