From: Megan Lambert <lambertmegan>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 12:51:28 -0700 (PDT)

The enthusiasm that this topic has generated prompts me to recommend Anne Fadiman's new book Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they love. It is fabulous--and worth reading if only for her comments in the introduction about the value of rereading books.

Rereading is a huge part of my reading life, and I so appreciate how rich a book becomes for me when I reread it from a different vantage point in my life. The Little House books had a tremendous impact on me (life changing? I don't know...I've been struggling with the distinction between life changing and life enriching in this discussion). The first time I reread them as a teenager I was appalled by their overt racism. I set them aside. Then, Michael Dorris's essay about his reading life with this series helped me to reclaim them and to see how holding multiple ideas and reactions to books allows for a richer relationship to them. My reactions to Bridge to Terabithia as a child and then as an adult are so different; now it's the scene when Jesse's father tries to comfort him that brings me to tears. As a parent I know the helplessness one feels when trying to comfort a grieving child. My child reader self just ached at the thought of locign a friend.

Other important books...Mildred Taylor's books about the Logan family, which I am sure planted the seed that led me to major in African American Studies in college; Anne of Green Gables at 11 and The Catcher in the Rye at 14--a strange pairing I realize, but I remember finding them by myself on the library shelves and feeling that I had discovered these fabulous books that spoke to me in important ways at these different points in my life. I do value the role that adults play in helping children find books, and I play this role regularly; but I still thrill at childhood memories of selecting my own books and feeling that I had discovered something special.

There are more books, of course--and given my work I want to mention picture books that were important to me...but that will have to be in another posting.

Megan Lambert Instructor of Children's Literature Programs The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
 


maggie_bo at comcast.net wrote: "Rereading at a different stage in life is like a whole different
> experience."

So very true. What's unfortunate is that we can never go back in time and read a book in an earlier stage of our lives! I have read a number of children's/young adult titles as an adult that I wish I could have had the experience of reading when I was younger, because, while I can appreciate and enjoy them now, I know the emotional impact they would have had on me then would have been much more powerful. For example, I wish I could have read Madeline L'Engles Austin family books as teenager. I would have identified with Vicki then in a much more direct and personal way then than I do now as an adult.

Maggie Bokelman
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Received on Thu 25 May 2006 02:51:28 PM CDT