Books We Read as Children, Part One

When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.” Kathleen Kelly, You’ve Got Mail

If you want animated conversation with a reader, ask them what books they read as a child. Invariably, their face will light up as they chronicle the books they read when they were young - sometimes completely random books that you’ve never heard of, other times classic stories that you remember reading as well.

Mind, this only works for people who have been readers from a young age. Ask the average freshman what they read when they were kids and they will stare at you blankly and mutter something about Dr. Seuss (a very good writer, I must add).

There are three strange things about favorite childhood books:

1: The books that one person claims are phenomenal, one of their favorites from childhood, a classic, are oftentimes books not many other people recognize.

2: These books will be vehemently defended by these people as wonderful books, even when other people, who are adults, read them and fail to see many (or any) redeeming qualities.

3: Therefore, it can be inferred there is some kind of magical bond that occurs when one is young and falling in love with a book, and that due to this bond, quality does not matter. 

I’m sure you have your own books that you love and reread now as an adult with fond sentimentality. For me, these books are The Blue Castle, The Blue Sword (no, these aren’t part of a series and are in two completely different genres), and The Ordinary Princess, among others.

Note my obvious penchant for novels with blue in the title.

Anyway, I recently read The Blue Castle to my husband. He agreed that it was funny, but told me, “it’s pretty much a romance.”

“No, it’s not,” I defended angrily. “It’s so funny, and it’s really about how the character changes and gets her dream life and doesn’t let her family control her any more…” my voice trailed away while my husband waited patiently.  A pause. “Okay, it’s a romance.”

The truth is, The Blue Castle, written by L.M. Montgomery, beloved author of Anne of Green Gables, is more or less a young adult romance. But to me it was so much more. When I read it as a child, the main character reminded me of the way I could be sometimes: timid, easily cowed, submissive to a fault, and dissatisfied with her life (most teens are dissatisfied with their life at one time or another). Then the character changes. She becomes bold and goes after the life she wants. That was inspiring to me as a child, and still is, really. That book became a reminder of all that I was capable of doing.

So when I read it again, and again, and again as an adult, I didn’t necessarily see the framework of any particular genre; I saw the girl I was when I first read it, remembered how I responded to it the first time I finished it (the ending is just delightful). I saw past me and present me and future me in that slim little book. I saw the flaws I struggled with then, the weaknesses I still struggle with, and all that I’ve overcome.

Years ago, a friend asked me a question dreaded by all book lovers:

“What is your favorite book?”

Groan. He noticed my dismay and quickly added, “What book do you find yourself rereading over and over?”

I’m a fairly private person and so I’m still surprised that I didn’t answer vaguely or give some scholarly answer like “Jane Austen books.” I think part of me didn't want to make myself appear more scholarly than I actually am. I was an English major and love classic authors like Dickens and Twain, so it would have been easy to put on a facade of sophistication - twirling my non-existent mustache and saying, “well it’s a toss up between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Dickens’ Great Expectations, my good man.”

But it wasn’t true. In a moment of unexpected honesty, I replied, “The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery.”

My friend raised an eyebrow. “Really? That surprises me,” he said, rather unnecessarily. Then he got pulled away by someone and I was left feeling a bit deflated.

The truth is, everyone is a bit surprised by the books that have the most profound impact on other people because, to quote Edmund Wilson, “no two persons ever read the same book.” No matter how close you are to a friend or family member, you might not always fully understand why they have a bond with their favorite books. 

Why those books spoke into their life in a quiet way.

Why they saw in that book a mirror, or a vision, or a dream.

So as much as I love to discuss books and recommend books and read books that my friends are reading, I know deep down that there is a part of my reading experience that is only mine. 

Which is quite possibly the reason I keep reading.

***********

Over the next few days and weeks I'm going to venture back into the dusty cobwebs of the books I loved as a child and share them with you on this blog. I'd love to hear in the comments what some of your favorites were as a child.

Merry Christmas!

“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!” 

- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Enjoy the holiday season! Keep Christmas well!

Why NaNoWriMo?

It’s 7:30 pm and I just put the baby to bed. A quiet peace descends almost instantly over the apartment as I quickly pick up all her toys and start doing the dishes. I still need to make and eat dinner and somehow I just can’t put my feet up until the apartment is clean. And I have to write about 2000 words tonight before I can relax. I groan inwardly. Why had I made this ridiculous commitment?

Every November, thousands of people across the world participate in NaNoWriMo. It’s National Novel Writing Month, and these crazy individuals decide to commit to writing a novel in 30 days. 30 days, 50,000 words.

When I first heard of NaNoWriMo I was ecstatic. “Sign me up!” I crowed and spent 7 feverish days thinking how wonderful this was and how surprisingly easy it was.

Then I hit a wall and couldn’t make it much further. It began to seem silly to sacrifice my sleep (sleep is very important to me) and time spent relaxing while I slaved away at a self-inflicted assignment. It felt like school again. Isn’t creativity supposed to make you happy? Maybe I just don’t like writing as much as I thought I did. I gave up at about 15,000 words.

I tried again the next year. I made it to 22,000. Once again, my heart just wasn’t in it. Plus I had a job – I was a first year English teacher, so the only writing I was doing was lesson plans and corrections on papers.

The next year I didn’t even sign up. What was the point? It would just stress me out unnecessarily and make me feel guilty – which is so weird, because why would you feel guilty for not writing a novel in a month?

This year however, I was determined. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it; I could make the commitment and follow through. Also, I wasn’t working because I was taking a year off to spend time with my beautiful brand new daughter. What excuse could I possibly make?

Turns out a lot. While staying at home with my daughter has been a delight, it’s also surprisingly exhausting. Often, I would try writing during her naps so that once she went to bed for the night I could relax. Suddenly I was shirking all sorts of responsibilities so that I could cram in an hour or two of writing every day. Because I tried to write in the mornings, I was going grocery shopping, running errands, and taking walks later and later or sometimes not at all. Then there were those days when it just didn’t happen and there I was, with my eyes wanting to close, or my mind just wanting to turn off with a book or a TV show instead of plunking out some truly terrible prose that I knew was no good – all for what? So I could say, “Hey everyone, I wrote 50,000 words of crap! I will never ever show this to anybody, and I didn’t even manage to finish my story, so I didn’t even technically write a novel in a month. But I got a cool certificate and this little bar on the NaNoWriMo website turned purple when it used to be blue!”

Yeah, that was pretty much the reason.

The day I finished NaNoWriMo I was elated. I made it to 50,000 words and my husband, daughter and I went out for eggnog lattes. I felt successful, I felt proud that I had seen it through to the end, but most of all I really felt relieved that my time would be my own again, that I could invite my sister over to hang out at the end of the day instead of sitting by myself grumpily writing – or worse, ignoring what she was saying and wishing she would leave soon because I still had to write my 1,667 words before bed.

But two days later, I found myself itching to write. It was December 3^rd, and I hadn’t written in 2, going on 3, days. I wanted to pull out the computer and delve into sentence formulation again. I missed it.

There are many people who have a lot to say about how NaNoWriMo isn’t worth it. It leaves you with a crappy novel, it makes writing stressful rather than fun, makes creativity a to-do item instead of a delight, it’s a rather futile activity. Surely, it is all these things for some people.

BUT.

But they say it takes 30 days to make something a habit, and I’m pretty sure writing on a regular basis is a habit for me now.

And I’ve read over and over again that writers don’t always like writing. They need (as in a deep down, soul-wrenching need) to write though, and so they do it anyway. That’s a lot like NaNoWriMo.

And if we aren’t doing anything creative because we keep putting it off, maybe we need to add it to our to do list – so we actually will do it.

My husband and I often talk about how strange it is that human beings know something is good for them, know that once they get started on it, they will enjoy themselves and feel good because of it, yet we refuse to do this thing. The best example of this in my life is exercise. I hate exercising. More than the average person. I will come up with almost any reason NOT to exercise. Which is strange, because when I work out, I feel great. I’ve trained for and run a half marathon before – it felt wonderful and I felt healthy and had a good body image for the first time in my whole life. But as soon as the half-marathon was over, I stopped. Then I did kickboxing for awhile. I hated going, but loved it once I got there. I would drive home from work and try to think of excuses that could get me out of going to kickboxing class. My husband pretty much made me go, and I always thanked him afterwards (though I cursed him inwardly while I was driving there) because I felt so good, and I’d really enjoyed it.

NaNoWriMo is like that for people who tell themselves, and sometimes others, that they want to write, they’d love to write a novel someday, they wish they could get paid to write for a living, they wish they had time to write. NaNoWriMo can be the fuel that changes these people – myself included – from “someday” people into “now” people. Even if that means making yourself write an abysmal novel when you’d rather be sleeping.

A few excellent Goodreads quotes from people who know what they are talking about should sum this up nicely:

“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”
- Julie Cameron

“Those who write are writers. Those who wait are waiters.” - A. Lee Martinez

“It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.” - Robert Haas

Time to stop being a waiter. See you next November.

P.S. If you do undertake the challenge next year, I’d love to be your writing buddy. My i.d. on the NaNoWriMo website is ashill. Hope to hear from you!

"We lived on love and books."

This interview with Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and other famous novels and stories,  is enchanting and inspiring. He was truly a remarkable man. My second favorite quote (that was too long to use as the title for this post) is: "I am going to make a t-shirt. It is going to say: 'Stand on the edge of a cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.'" If they ever make that shirt, I will be sure to buy it.

One of the reasons why fiction sparks discussion...