"Self as Informant" Reflection

The assignment asks us, first, to blog about our first encounter with a children's book, and, second, to blog about a book that made a difference in our lives.

I honestly cannot recall my first encounter with a children's book, so I'll have to rely on general impressions. There was one book I enjoyed as a child that I probably would not have remembered had I not had the good fortune to stumble across it again as an adult. It's called When I Have a Little Girl, written by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Hilary Knight, who also illustrated Eloise. The book is a little girl's fantasy about how she'll change all the rules when she has a daughter of her own. Now it's paired with another title, When I Have a Little Boy, in a push-me, pull-you kind of way. (You flip the book over and start the Little Boy book from the back.) I remember loving the illustrations in this book and the exuberant abandon of its star, who skips out of the house in the snow without a jacket and pulls dress-up clothes and jewelry from her mother's drawers without permission. I think I can remember feeling soothed, as a child, by the notion that I could change all of the unfair rules when I grew up.

The first book I remember reading on my own was Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. I was in kindergarten, and I checked it out of the big library at my preschool-12 school, feeling very grown up. I took it out to the back yard and read it on the swing set and was pretty puffed up about the fact that I finished it in a single afternoon. I think I even remember counting the pages for later boasting rights.


As for a book that made a difference in my life, there are so many that it's hard to choose. I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time one summer in college and was deeply moved by the good-and-evil allegory. In the summer after college I fell in love with Ayn Rand -- especially The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I was really impressed with Rand's political philosophy at the time but am pretty sure that I'd have a very different reaction if I were to read her again today (which is part of why I haven't). Sadly, the passage of time also revealed that I'm not much of a Frank Lloyd Wright fan but prefer the more neo-traditional architecture that the book decries so viciously. Ellsworth Toohey, however, wormed his way into my consciousness and makes frequent appearances in any situation in which I have the feeling that someone is dissembling for manipulative effect or trying to subvert independent thinking to a debasing end.












In high school I devoured Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and after college I ate up Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. It was Lawrence who really awakened my love of the English language and prompted me to begin "collecting" words. When my first son was an infant and sleeping a lot, I discovered and adored Barbara Kingsolver and Frank McCourt. My favorite author, by far, though, and one whose work only charms me more with the passage of time, is Jane Austen. While I was convalescing last year after an emergency surgery, I read all of her novels -- Pride and Prejudice twice. The stories are small, in a way, and certainly reflect only a tiny, very privileged part of English society, but Austen never fails to capture my heart and lighten my spirits with her wonderful writing and wry wit, even if, in the end, every plot centers on woman's ability to marry for love in a time when many women married for position.