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[CCBC-Net] books that changed us
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From: MShuttleworth at slv.vic.gov.au <MShuttleworth>
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:34:41 +1000
Like Bonnie, my first 'library' also came in a small steel box, delivered fortnightly (or more likely monthly) to my two-room school. The sense of anticipation on opening that box remains a vivid memory, an almost physical memory in fact.
In high school, things got pretty interesting when I picked up a book that I wonder if the library itself knew it even had. The book is Rogue Male, a World War 2 thriller by English writer Geoffrey Household. While it was never going to make the curriculum (tho' perhaps it should) the book did that magical thing of taking me into another world. In this case, a small, damp, dark foxhole where the British spy lay in hiding from a German gunman. Tension? Excitement? For me, Rogue Male had in spades. A copy of the book is still on my bedside shelf. When I see books today like the Alex Rider series, or the chunky novels of Matthew Riley in the hands of teenage boys, I have a pretty good idea of why they are turning to these kinds of books. "Good books" they may not be, but they can give the developing reader an unforgettable experience. After the heart-thumping anxiety of hiding out from Hitler's henchmen in a cold and lonely foxhole, I 'became' a reader. I wanted the otherness that only a book provided.
I wonder why the school put that book there. It was unheralded on the shelf, I don't think it even had a dust-jacket and the title was, to use a good British phrase, 'a bit naff'. And no one said 'try this, you might like it'. Perhaps it was the sense that there was something a little rebellious about that choice fed my own approval. It didn't, oddly enough, turn me into a great thriller reader, but it did hurtle me down a path of wanting to experience whatever else books had to offer.
Mike
Mike Shuttleworth Program Co-ordinator Centre for Youth Literature 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 PH: 03 8664 7262 FAX: 03 9639 4143 http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/youthlit/
Received on Sun 28 May 2006 07:34:41 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:34:41 +1000
Like Bonnie, my first 'library' also came in a small steel box, delivered fortnightly (or more likely monthly) to my two-room school. The sense of anticipation on opening that box remains a vivid memory, an almost physical memory in fact.
In high school, things got pretty interesting when I picked up a book that I wonder if the library itself knew it even had. The book is Rogue Male, a World War 2 thriller by English writer Geoffrey Household. While it was never going to make the curriculum (tho' perhaps it should) the book did that magical thing of taking me into another world. In this case, a small, damp, dark foxhole where the British spy lay in hiding from a German gunman. Tension? Excitement? For me, Rogue Male had in spades. A copy of the book is still on my bedside shelf. When I see books today like the Alex Rider series, or the chunky novels of Matthew Riley in the hands of teenage boys, I have a pretty good idea of why they are turning to these kinds of books. "Good books" they may not be, but they can give the developing reader an unforgettable experience. After the heart-thumping anxiety of hiding out from Hitler's henchmen in a cold and lonely foxhole, I 'became' a reader. I wanted the otherness that only a book provided.
I wonder why the school put that book there. It was unheralded on the shelf, I don't think it even had a dust-jacket and the title was, to use a good British phrase, 'a bit naff'. And no one said 'try this, you might like it'. Perhaps it was the sense that there was something a little rebellious about that choice fed my own approval. It didn't, oddly enough, turn me into a great thriller reader, but it did hurtle me down a path of wanting to experience whatever else books had to offer.
Mike
Mike Shuttleworth Program Co-ordinator Centre for Youth Literature 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 PH: 03 8664 7262 FAX: 03 9639 4143 http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/youthlit/
Received on Sun 28 May 2006 07:34:41 PM CDT
