From: Angela Frederick <AFrederick>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 09:54:55 -0500

I have to say that just the presence of books and the process of being read to by my parents is what really changed my life.

My mother would pile books in my crib when I was 18 months old, and reading with my Dad every night was one of the best parts of my day. You couldn't turn around in our house without falling over books.

Having said that, though, there are a few books that altered the way I viewed the world:

LITTLE BLACK, A PONY - This was an old beginning reader book that had belonged to my mother when she was a child. I was attracted to it because of the melancholy story of Little Black, and his want to be loved by his owner. Every child wants to feel important and that they are loved, and this book really spoke to me.

NUMBER THE STARS - I was 11 or 12 when I read this, and it was one of my first inklings about what the Jews suffered during World War II. I vividly remember the descriptions of the Nazi soldiers and how the young girls were afraid to walk by them after school.

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN and GONE WITH THE WIND - I read both of these when I was about 16 years old, and it was the first time I really enjoyed some literary novels. Instead of being assigned these books in English class, I had picked them off the library shelves myself, and that freedom of choice really lit a fire under me as a teenaged reader.


Thanks for this interesting discussion.

Angela Frederick San Antonio Public Library
Received on Thu 25 May 2006 09:54:55 AM CDT