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[CCBC-Net] Childhood of Famous American series (Books with Orange Covers)
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From: Susan Daugherty <susaninaruba>
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:32:56 -0700 (PDT)
Bonnie Withers was referring to this series (see above), which someone else has already referred to. They horrify people now, but they had their good points. When my husband and I met, one of the ways we bonded was our common love of these books and their orange covers with the silhouettes.
Susan
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Today's Topics:
1. Life Changing Books (Jane Hertenstein) 2. Re: books that changed us (Bonnie Withers) 3. life-changing books--rereading (maggie_bo at comcast.net) 4. Re: books that changed us (MShuttleworth at slv.vic.gov.au) 5. ATT Bev Hock (Apologies, OT) (Judith Ridge)
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Message: 1 Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 13:11:35 -0500 From: "Jane Hertenstein" Subject: [CCBC-Net] Life Changing Books To: Message-ID: <010b01c68282$28226560$1c0aa8c0 at HERTENSTEIN> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I am absolutely convinced that had I been a child growing up today I'd be medicated. I was hyper and anxious, always thinking and never got along with my classmates. A perpetual outsider and loner--yet I WANTED FRIENDS.
So for me reading became a safe place, just about the only place I felt settled and secure. And what did I like to read--REAL stories (that is before they slipped into genre and "problem" books).
The book that changed my life, THE OUTSIDERS. The memory of discovering this book is crystal clear--and like with all crystal clear memories it involves all the senses--not just hearing, but smell, taste--I remember where I was standing and what the weather was like. It was the last day of 6th grade and I found a copy abandoned in a locker. I took it (trying to decide if it was stealing or not) and read it that evening. What a way to start the summer. I had never read anything like it and it made me hungry for more. It gave me hope.
Still, today, it is a book that connects with me. My daughter was filling out an application for an extra curricular activity a few months back and one of the questions was to list your favorite book. OMG--she wrote THE OUTSIDERS.
Jane Hertenstein
------------------------------
Message: 2 Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 18:36:58 -0500 From: Bonnie Withers Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] books that changed us To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Hi Everyone, This has been a wonderful thread, tugging me back and forth through time and themes. I've wanted to post but it has been, as many of you have noted, very difficult to pick one or two titles. In the one-room schoolhouse in northern Wisconsin I attended for my first six grades, the "library" consisted of one bookcase about 3 feet wide by 5 feet tall. Although the bookmobile came every two weeks, that in-house bookcase was my mainstay. Two items stand out. One was a collection of children's poetry entitled Silver Pennies with an unforgettable poem
"Vinegar Man".
I believe the most influential book on that shelf was one of a series of biographies. They had orange covers and the illustrations were black silhouettes. (I think they were an early version of the Landmark series.) I read them all, but the one that made the greatest impact was the biography of George Washington Carver. This was my introduction to blacks, to slavery, to the Klan, to the unbelievable struggle of those times for African-Americans and to the will to overcome a degree of adversity and prejudice I couldn't imagine. I read it several times and can still recall staring in disbelief at the simple and powerful illustrations. This story was not anywhere in the school curriculum and I don't remember talking to the teacher or anyone else about it, but it gave birth to a concern for social justice that never left me.
Bonnie Withers School Library Media Program Coordinator School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
------------------------------
Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 00:02:52 +0000 From: maggie_bo at comcast.net Subject: [CCBC-Net] life-changing books--rereading To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Message-ID:
<052920060002.15657.447A3A2C0004003300003D292200748184010DA10A0709090E03 at comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain
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 gi rl 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
------------------------------
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:34:41 +1000 From: MShuttleworth at slv.vic.gov.au Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] books that changed us To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu, Bonnie Withers
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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/
------------------------------
Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 14:49:42 +1000 From: Judith Ridge Subject: [CCBC-Net] ATT Bev Hock (Apologies, OT) To: ccbc_net Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Excuse me, ccbc_net!
Bev, I have replied to your email but can?t register with your spam filter as it will not load fully on any browser.
Thanks,
Judith
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:32:56 -0700 (PDT)
Bonnie Withers was referring to this series (see above), which someone else has already referred to. They horrify people now, but they had their good points. When my husband and I met, one of the ways we bonded was our common love of these books and their orange covers with the silhouettes.
Susan
ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu wrote:
Send CCBC-Net mailing list submissions to ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
You can reach the person managing the list at ccbc-net-owner at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of CCBC-Net digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Life Changing Books (Jane Hertenstein) 2. Re: books that changed us (Bonnie Withers) 3. life-changing books--rereading (maggie_bo at comcast.net) 4. Re: books that changed us (MShuttleworth at slv.vic.gov.au) 5. ATT Bev Hock (Apologies, OT) (Judith Ridge)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 13:11:35 -0500 From: "Jane Hertenstein" Subject: [CCBC-Net] Life Changing Books To: Message-ID: <010b01c68282$28226560$1c0aa8c0 at HERTENSTEIN> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I am absolutely convinced that had I been a child growing up today I'd be medicated. I was hyper and anxious, always thinking and never got along with my classmates. A perpetual outsider and loner--yet I WANTED FRIENDS.
So for me reading became a safe place, just about the only place I felt settled and secure. And what did I like to read--REAL stories (that is before they slipped into genre and "problem" books).
The book that changed my life, THE OUTSIDERS. The memory of discovering this book is crystal clear--and like with all crystal clear memories it involves all the senses--not just hearing, but smell, taste--I remember where I was standing and what the weather was like. It was the last day of 6th grade and I found a copy abandoned in a locker. I took it (trying to decide if it was stealing or not) and read it that evening. What a way to start the summer. I had never read anything like it and it made me hungry for more. It gave me hope.
Still, today, it is a book that connects with me. My daughter was filling out an application for an extra curricular activity a few months back and one of the questions was to list your favorite book. OMG--she wrote THE OUTSIDERS.
Jane Hertenstein
------------------------------
Message: 2 Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 18:36:58 -0500 From: Bonnie Withers Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] books that changed us To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Hi Everyone, This has been a wonderful thread, tugging me back and forth through time and themes. I've wanted to post but it has been, as many of you have noted, very difficult to pick one or two titles. In the one-room schoolhouse in northern Wisconsin I attended for my first six grades, the "library" consisted of one bookcase about 3 feet wide by 5 feet tall. Although the bookmobile came every two weeks, that in-house bookcase was my mainstay. Two items stand out. One was a collection of children's poetry entitled Silver Pennies with an unforgettable poem
"Vinegar Man".
I believe the most influential book on that shelf was one of a series of biographies. They had orange covers and the illustrations were black silhouettes. (I think they were an early version of the Landmark series.) I read them all, but the one that made the greatest impact was the biography of George Washington Carver. This was my introduction to blacks, to slavery, to the Klan, to the unbelievable struggle of those times for African-Americans and to the will to overcome a degree of adversity and prejudice I couldn't imagine. I read it several times and can still recall staring in disbelief at the simple and powerful illustrations. This story was not anywhere in the school curriculum and I don't remember talking to the teacher or anyone else about it, but it gave birth to a concern for social justice that never left me.
Bonnie Withers School Library Media Program Coordinator School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
------------------------------
Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 00:02:52 +0000 From: maggie_bo at comcast.net Subject: [CCBC-Net] life-changing books--rereading To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Message-ID:
<052920060002.15657.447A3A2C0004003300003D292200748184010DA10A0709090E03 at comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain
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 gi rl 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
------------------------------
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:34:41 +1000 From: MShuttleworth at slv.vic.gov.au Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] books that changed us To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu, Bonnie Withers
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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/
------------------------------
Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 14:49:42 +1000 From: Judith Ridge Subject: [CCBC-Net] ATT Bev Hock (Apologies, OT) To: ccbc_net Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Excuse me, ccbc_net!
Bev, I have replied to your email but can?t register with your spam filter as it will not load fully on any browser.
Thanks,
Judith
-- Judith Ridge Assistant Editor (Acting) The School Magazine Celebrating 90 Years?1916-2006 Curriculum K-12 Directorate NSW Department of Education and Training PO Box 1928 Macquarie Centre NSW 2113 AUSTRALIA +61 2 9889 0044 +61 2 9889 0040 (fax) ********************************************************************** This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain privileged information or confidential information or both. If you are not the intended recipient please delete it and notify the sender. ********************************************************************** ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 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 End of CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 10, Issue 45 **************************************** --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.Received on Mon 29 May 2006 12:32:56 PM CDT
