From: Kerry Madden <kiffnkerry>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:26:25 -0700 (PDT)

I love this topic, and it's giving me flashbacks as I've really started to think about the books that gave me so much hope and solace and escape as a kid...

READY-MADE FAMILY by Frances Salomon Murphy...the oldest girl is Hedwig Kowalski (a little adult) and nobody says her name right...and she's longing to belong, bounced around the relatives...her sister, Mary Rose, is perfect, and her brother, Peter, is always in trouble...It's so good....I loved this book. I just orderd it again, it's been so long...

FOLLOW BY LEADER by James B. Garfield...a fireworks accident blinds a kid, Jimmy, and it scared me so much reading it, but then I loved Jimmy's relationship with his dog. Scared me off firecrackers for good.

WHERE THE LILLIES BLOOM, speaking of Vera and Bill Cleaver...I loved this mountain family, surviving from nosy neighbors, selling "seng."

And Jean Little...MINE FOR KEEPS, HOME FROM FAR, TAKE WING...these were books I adored...

And older reads? DON'T LOOK AND IT WON'T HURT by Richard Peck. I loved this book, and sent it to my cousin, and my aunt tore it up, and it was my first experience with an adult who could destroy a book based on the subject matter, and I was horrified, because I knew what a beautiful story it was...

And LISA BRIGHT AND DARK BY John Neufeld...I loved the voice of the narrator, the sane friend...

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW by SE Hinton...I loved voice in this book...

CHRISTY by Catherine Marshall...I loved the 1912 teacher who goes to Cutter Gap in Tennessee to open a school.

I spent a chunk of every summer at my grandparents' home in Leavenworth, Kansas, and that Leavenworth Library was a cool world of escape with stories upon stories.

Thank you for this thread...I so agree with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD too ...we've raised our three kids on the film and book...

All best Kerry Madden www.kerrymadden.com GENTLE'S HOLLER, Viking, 2005 LOUISIANA'S SONG, Viking, 2007

 
Received on Wed 12 Jul 2006 01:26:25 PM CDT