From: Melody Allen <melody_allen>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 08:46:41 -0400

The Borrowers stands out for me as well. Despite being taken to story hour and read aloud to, I was a virtual nonreader until the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I entered a school with a summer reading list (had to read 10 books in those days) which led me to The Borrowers. I think the child in me who had played happily with her dollhouse for hours loved the idea of those little people and how they managed their lives. Looking back, what seems important is not that the book changed my life, but that it validated it, that I found a book that connected with me as a seemingly unique individual.

Before that my most loved book was Wind in the Willows which was read to me and I am sure that it was Mole's domestic life and Ratty's love of the water that undoubtedly appealed to me more than Toad's wild adventures.

I must also concur with Connie on Daughter of Time. That book and April Morning by Howard Fast fed my growing love of history and historic places. In high school I wrote a paper on the historical accuracy of April Morning, which is about the opening of the American Revolution. Living in the Boston area, I was fortunate that my mother was willing and able to drive me to places where I could examine primary source materials. Once again I was involved with the little everyday objects that surround people - checking out utensils and clothing and other household objects to be sure each item mentioned in the book was accurately depicted. Both books made me aware that writers can shape our views of historical figures, events and periods, and helped to sharpen my critical thinking skills. Also helped to make me a pack rat, as I know that my credit card and utility bills, ticket stubs and concert/theater programs, etc. all can be fodder for historical researchers many years after I will be gone. Oh, well... M elody Melody Allen melody_allen at gw.doa.state.ri.us

>>> Connie Rockman <connie.rock at snet.net> 05/24/06 12:10AM >>>
The Borrowers was an important book for me. It wasn't just the little people, though I loved that, or the inter-species relationship between Arietty and the human boy, which was cool, but I think it was the first book that made me realize the importance of detailed description and how much that brings a story to life in your imagination. And not just the written descriptions, but those wonderfully detailed line drawings by Beth and Joe Krush, especially the one of Arietty sitting on a spool of thread writing in her huge diary with a stub of pencil balanced against her shoulder, and of Pod talking to Great-aunt Sophie who thought he came out of her bottle of Madeira - great stuff. {In college I had a friend who had brought many of her favorite childhood books with her to school - and that was when I discovered there were more books about the Borrowers - O Joy! During a bout with Mono in my junior year, I did nothing for several weeks but drag myself to class and then go back to bed with The Borrowers Afield,. . . Afloat, and . .
. Aloft. It was bliss.}

The books I remember most as an early teen were Elizabeth, Captive Princess and Young Bess. Can't remember how I came to read them - they weren't written for kids - but I was amazed at how richly the early years of Queen Elizabeth came to life before my eyes. Again, it was the wealth of detail that made those books so vibrant, so real to me. I haven't read them since, but plan to look them up - now that these memories are stirred - because they set me on a lifelong course of enjoying historical fiction and a fascination, particularly, for British history.

In college, an English history professor had us read two works of historical fiction each semester of the year-long course. You weren't required to read those books, but the final exam was rigged so you couldn't get an A unless you had read them. Thanks to him I first encountered Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time - an all-time favorite for its revelation that history is written by the conquerors, and that even my beloved Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare himself were not above maligning poor Richard III, who had been on the losing side of the Wars of the Roses. The Devil in Velvet by John Dickson Carr was another treat of that course - a mystery thriller of the Restoration period - again, full of rich period detail, and a real page-turner.

Connie Rockman
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Received on Wed 24 May 2006 07:46:41 AM CDT