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[CCBC-Net] Re-reading
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From: Ellen Greever <greever>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 11:56:09 -0500
I don't know about other people but I still have no trouble getting lost in a book (or a variety of other media for that matter). I can be sitting at my computer reading email or an article and be totally startled when someone comes to my office door.
But on the re-reading thread. I heard Madeleine L'Engle once talk about
"1 read" books and "7 read" books. Seven obviously being an arbitrary number. Her point was that you get everything there is to get the first time through in some books, but other books are worth multiple re-readings. I think C.S. Lewis said something similar in his essay, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children." For me, Judy Blume was 1-read and L'Engle was definitely 7-read.
I know I re-read books for a variety of reasons. Often to refresh my memory for class (and with luck find something new to me), often for comfort. A few years ago, I had chemotherapy, and I remember several things about my reading during that time. The first was that if I took a book to chemo to read, I wouldn't pick it up again later (I started Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants one day and still haven't finished it). The second was that the only new books I read were quite short and had to come with strong recommendations from people I trusted that they wouldn't have anything potentially upsetting in them. For those four months, I mostly re-read mysteries and childhood favorites, magazines, and the newspaper.
Ellen Greever UW-Milwaukee
-----Original Message----- From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
[mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of Clark, Mary Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 10:12 AM To: ccbc-net at ccbc.ad.education.wisc.edu Subject: [CCBC-Net] Re-reading
Maggie wrote:
<< What's unfortunate is that we can never go back in time and read a book in an earlier stage of our lives!>>
And I'd like to ask the experts: Is it only in childhood that we can get lost in a book? As a child, I'd be so transported into another world by a book that my mother used to half-jokingly shout, "Come back!" to get my attention. I see students in my library so absorbed in their reading that their class leaves without them, and I startle them when I call their names. Yet I can't recall being that engrossed in a book since high school, and I've read thousands of wonderful books since then.
Do we lose that ability to disappear in a book as we age? Or is this fierce concentration I'm nostalgic merely a lack of reading fluency, that fades as we become more fluent readers? Please don't tell me it's just me!
Mary
Mary Clark Library Media Tech I La Costa Meadows Elementary School Carlsbad, CA USA 760-290-2128 Mary.clark at smusd.org
_______________________________________________ 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
Received on Thu 25 May 2006 11:56:09 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 11:56:09 -0500
I don't know about other people but I still have no trouble getting lost in a book (or a variety of other media for that matter). I can be sitting at my computer reading email or an article and be totally startled when someone comes to my office door.
But on the re-reading thread. I heard Madeleine L'Engle once talk about
"1 read" books and "7 read" books. Seven obviously being an arbitrary number. Her point was that you get everything there is to get the first time through in some books, but other books are worth multiple re-readings. I think C.S. Lewis said something similar in his essay, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children." For me, Judy Blume was 1-read and L'Engle was definitely 7-read.
I know I re-read books for a variety of reasons. Often to refresh my memory for class (and with luck find something new to me), often for comfort. A few years ago, I had chemotherapy, and I remember several things about my reading during that time. The first was that if I took a book to chemo to read, I wouldn't pick it up again later (I started Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants one day and still haven't finished it). The second was that the only new books I read were quite short and had to come with strong recommendations from people I trusted that they wouldn't have anything potentially upsetting in them. For those four months, I mostly re-read mysteries and childhood favorites, magazines, and the newspaper.
Ellen Greever UW-Milwaukee
-----Original Message----- From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
[mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of Clark, Mary Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 10:12 AM To: ccbc-net at ccbc.ad.education.wisc.edu Subject: [CCBC-Net] Re-reading
Maggie wrote:
<< What's unfortunate is that we can never go back in time and read a book in an earlier stage of our lives!>>
And I'd like to ask the experts: Is it only in childhood that we can get lost in a book? As a child, I'd be so transported into another world by a book that my mother used to half-jokingly shout, "Come back!" to get my attention. I see students in my library so absorbed in their reading that their class leaves without them, and I startle them when I call their names. Yet I can't recall being that engrossed in a book since high school, and I've read thousands of wonderful books since then.
Do we lose that ability to disappear in a book as we age? Or is this fierce concentration I'm nostalgic merely a lack of reading fluency, that fades as we become more fluent readers? Please don't tell me it's just me!
Mary
Mary Clark Library Media Tech I La Costa Meadows Elementary School Carlsbad, CA USA 760-290-2128 Mary.clark at smusd.org
_______________________________________________ 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
Received on Thu 25 May 2006 11:56:09 AM CDT
