I want to read more books. I've always been a huge reader, but in the last five years or so, television and the Internet has taken more and more of my free time. There is still nothing like a good book though.
I was born into a reading family, at least on my mother's side. I was surrounded by books as a child, primarily
Winnie-the-Pooh and old Little Golden Books that belonged to my mother.
The Poky Little Puppy. The Shy Little Kitten.
“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” ~Winnie-the-PoohBy second grade I had completely fallen in love with
The Boxcar Children, which my teacher read to us every day after lunch. I could not get over hearing about these four siblings taking care of themselves after their parents' death by living in an abandoned boxcar. The freedom and independence and adventure -- just thrilling.
The next one-two punch came with
The Hardy Boys and
The Call of the Wild. On a whim, my great aunt Merle gave me two Hardy Boys books for Christmas when I was 8 or 9. I devoured them. For the next 4 or 5 years, every Christmas, every birthday was Hardy Boys books. I ended up with the entire original series of 50-something books, which (this will surprise no one who knows me) I still have with me today.
It is funny what things stick out in my mind about those books -- I remember everyone in those books called their friends "chums," which was hilarious to me for some reason. I remember the best chum of the Hardy Boys drove a Jalopy, which I thought was some kind of special car. It actually just means a old clunker or something. I also remember the author of the series was a woman, but used Franklin W. Dixon as her pen name because it was believed that boys would not buy adventure books written by a woman. Can you believe 70/80 years later, publishers still think that way (which is why JK Rowling used her initials for
Harry Potter)?
The Hardy Boys also brings fond memories of my grandmother as I remember dozens and dozens of trips to the bookstore with her so I could pick out which books I wanted. No matter how many times I wrote down which ones I already had, she was always nervous she'd get me a duplicate, so I just went with her. She always bought me two books -- never three, never one. Always two.
And of course my aunt Merle. I sent her and my uncle Porter a letter many years ago thanking them for those first Hardy Boys books as they really cemented my love for reading. When Porter died several years ago, Merle said that he wanted me to have some of his old books because that letter had really meant a lot to them.
I guess I was 11 or 12 when I first read
The Call of the Wild. I thought it was so dark and beautiful. It is the first time I recall being really moved by a book. I had definitely been entertained and excited by books, but emotionally moved -- this was the first time. I had mostly forgotten about
The Call of the Wild until the late 1990s when Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, that again!) used it so perfectly in an episode. It reminded me of the book's power.
'Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day. And the strain of the primitive remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof were his, yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. And from the depths of the forest, a call still sounded.' ~ The Call of the WildSeventh grade brought the gothic horror novel
Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews. Holy crap. Of course it is cheesy now to think back on that, but talk about adrenaline just coursing through my body. My parents were actually pretty strict as far as the movies and TV I could see, so this was in a way my first introduction to horror. It was so foreign to anything I had known or seen. An evil grandmother locking her grandchildren in an attic. A mother poisoning her own children so she could claim her father's inheritance and start a new life. Horsewhippings, hangings, hot tar in the hair -- I just couldn't believe what I was reading, and that was so exciting.
Our entire tenth grade class was required to read
The Grapes of Wrath. To my knowledge, I am the only person who liked it. Hahahaha. I actually loved it, and went on to read many other works by Steinbeck. Like with
The Call of the Wild, I was just very moved by it.
"How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other." ~ The Grapes of WrathOf course I've read hundreds more books since tenth grade, but these books I've discussed I consider the foundation for my love of reading. This is very self-indulgent post as likely no one cares about this for me, but damn, I've enjoyed it. And what is a blog if not self-indulgent?
Doh ...
