From: Elizabeth Bluemle <ehbluemle>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 23:16:57 -0400

Maggie, I think I know what you mean.

The way I have thought about it is that I think child readers build more of the world of the book all around them as they read than adults. If this is true, it may be in part because adults have a greater range of experiences that causes us to read in a kind of imaginative shorthand. We reduce (use mental shorthand) rather than build, perhaps? Reduce in order to filter? I'm not sure exactly.

I'm often astonished to re-read a book that I would have sworn had detailed pictures or descriptions, only to discover the text and art much sparer than I remember. My child mind filled everything with detail and color and a wide lens.

I don't feel as though I've lost my imagination over the years at all, but I think I use it differently. Or it uses me differently.

I am with you, Amy, in loving books passionately as an adult, and experiencing the great ones with awe and wonder and that delicious, dizzying immersion. However, I still feel a difference between the imaginative quality of that experience and the ones I had as a child.

Even if I feel I am living a book while reading it now, it still isn't the same
(for me; others' mileage may vary) as living it when I was a child. Perhaps because the ideas and images were so fresh and startling and delightful to my young brain.

I love that this topic has been addressed, because I think about it often. I'm interested to know what others think.

Cheers, Elizabeth

*** Elizabeth Bluemle ehbluemle at gmail.com www.elizabethbluemle.com www.flyingpigbooks.com
Received on Thu 25 May 2006 10:16:57 PM CDT