From: maggie_bo at comcast.net <maggie_bo>
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 00:02:52 +0000

I have enjoyed this discussion so much. It's given me a lot to think about. I've shared some of it with my 13-year-old, and she decided to try rereading. She chose (no prompting from me) A Wrinkle In Time, although earlier when we talked she said the only book she'd really consider life-changing is The Phantom Tollbooth, because it made her learn to think in a new way. She read Wrinkle in one sitting, said she enjoyed it again, but also said she had remembered the whole thing clearly (she last read it 3 years ago) and that is why she is not a big fan of rereading--no surprises. It strikes me that she is more of a thinker than a feeler (an assessment she would heartily agree too); she connects, I think, more with ideas than characters. Maybe this makes a difference, I don't know. Maybe she just has a better memory than I do. My other daughter, who is 10, and likes to read but goes through nothing near the quantity of books as her sister (she's a science/math/nature girl to the core), chose the Heartland books (for those who don't know, these are a series of horse book that are usually bittersweet) and Black Beauty as life-changing books because she said they help her imagine how animals feel. She does reread occasionally (has read B.B. several times) and she is definitely a "feeler", not a "thinker". Just some food for thought.

Maggie Bokelman
Received on Sun 28 May 2006 07:02:52 PM CDT