If 4th grade was the year I became a reader, then 7th grade is the year I began to devour books. It's the year that I branched out from reading children's chapter books to reading more young adult and adult novels. I don't think that there was any one event that triggered this, although I can think of several contributing factors.
7th grade is the first year that I really remember having specific assigned readings that were books. The Hobbit was one of them. One of the others was And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I read Ice Castles for a book report. (There, I just dated myself!) I didn't really enjoy the assigned readings, and truly did not get into The Hobbit. But I did enjoy another book given to me to read by the same teacher - A Separate Peace. This is one of the first "serious" books I read, which is how it made the 15 list.
What's odd about me not liking The Hobbit, is that I read a lot of fantasy. Many of the Tolkein's followers are authors that I love. Because of my dislike of The Hobbit, I didn't read The Lord of the Rings Trilogy until shortly before the movies came out. I didn't enjoy reading the LOTR trilogy, either, but I love the movies.
In any case, A Wrinkle in Time was a fantasy I read in 7th grade that I loved. I've read nearly all of L'Engle's work, including the nonfiction, and she's one of my favorite all time writers. I couldn't believe it when I was able to meet her when I was in college. She was the first really famous person I'd ever met. (I just thought about the number of children's book authors I've met in person. Given that only a couple of the meetings were at book signings, it's actually a fairly impressive group.)
1 comment:
L'Engle signed 4 books for me that day! (I waited for the end of the line.)
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