Favorite books–Now and then
Children’s Book Week is coming up the week of November 12-18. This event always awakens memories of favorite books that I read when I was in school.
One of these was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. A fantasy before there were many of this genre, it was less a fast paced adventure than a phenomenal cast of characters and filled with a fascinating array of allusions. There was the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and Humpty Dumpty, a particular favorite. I identify more and more with the Red Queen who having just run Alice off her feet says that “If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Now I am reading Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars. I haven’t gotten far but the main character Alyce insists that Lewis Carroll, that horrible man got everything wrong. I plan to keep my copy of the original Alice close by so that I don’t miss any of these new allusions.
Another of my middle school favorites is The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Pope. Part historical fiction (flashbacks to the American Revolution), part ghost story, part mystery, part humor, and part romance, this book is one that I recommend to students who are willing to take a chance on an “old” book. Many of them have returned to say how much they enjoyed reading it. I highly encourage you to give it a try. I might just have to read it again soon myself.
I read so many new books now that it is hard to choose a favorite. However, I recently read a wonderful story called the Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt. On Wednesday afternoons when the rest of his class is either at catechism or Hebrew school, Holling Hoodhood is left behind with his teacher Mrs. Baker who makes him read Shakespeare. He tries telling his busy father, timid mother, and bossy sister that Mrs. Baker hates him but no one listens. The year is 1967. Vietnam is changing many people’s lives. Sometimes you just happen to find somebody special who changes yours. Oh, and don’t forget the rats in the classroom ceiling!
I just finished The Garden of Eve by K. L. Going. “Forced” by her father to move from the town where her mother died, Eve is transplanted to a farm with an orchard filled with withered apple trees that the locals say is cursed. She meets a boy who claims he is dead and is given a magical seed. If she plants the seed will she solve the mystery of the orchard? Find her beloved mother again? Can she overcome her grief and trust in the power of love?
Here is your chance to tell me about your absolutely favorite book memory. Is it a story someone read to you before you could read yourself? a read-aloud that you shared in school? A book a friend recommended? Something that you just finished? Don’t keep it to yourself. Someone else will want to read it too.
