From: Connie Rockman <connie.rock>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 10:32:15 -0400

I've just received a copy of the beautiful brochure and reader's guide that Henry Holt has created for the newly designed paperback editions of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, etc.) that so many have mentioned as meaningful, life-changing books for them.

The brochure includes a conversation with Lloyd, and I thought you all would be interested to see his answer to the very question we have been considering this month. I've learned so much from all of you, and this wonderful author's statement seems to sum it all up in a very special way . . .

Connie Rockman

 From "A Reader's Companion to Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain" (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers) - a conversation with Lloyd Alexander: What was your favorite book(s) as a child and why? As a child and as an adult, how to choose Shakespeare and overlook Mark Twain? Pick Lewis Carroll and neglect Charles Dickens? The real answer, I think, is that our favorite book is the one that speaks most clearly to us and gives us what we most need at a given time in our life. So our favorites change as we change. However, a new favorite doesn?t replace an old one. We keep them all. They accumulate. They?re always with us, helping to shape our personality and attitudes. As the saying goes, we are what we eat. I?d rather say: We are what we read.
Received on Wed 31 May 2006 09:32:15 AM CDT