When I was a kid, I would bike the blocks over to the library (making sure the creepy old man of the neighborhood wasn't following) and take my pick. I was a cautious reader, relying heavily on old favorites. I read a lot of outdated books- those books written before WWII, that the library was stocked with. Everyone always seemed happy in those, ready for adventure and ready for escapades. I still have a few of these old books in my own collection, picked up from library sales.
I find their allure is rather gone and their happy worlds a trifle tiring. I finally read "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" last year and loved it. I couldn't read it as a kid- I was too shaken by the deep depression that hung over the family in the book. Not surprising I couldn't read it then, after all, I was an undiagnosed child with deep depression myself. Sometimes things hit too close to home. And though I was an avid book reader and pedaled to the library more times than I could count, I never considered a Summer Reading List. No, summer was the time when you could read whatever you wanted and not be hampered by things like Ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" or Richardson's nauseating "The Peace Child." No more dull christian biographies or equally dull fiction. I read books by George MacDonald, allured by the idea of fish leading someone to a fairy woman and hardly understanding what Unitarian (as MacDonald was) could be. They were happy days when I poured over Beatrix Potter (even at twelve, I would sneak into the kid section and read them one by one), MacDonald, Agatha Christie and biographies on Mary, Queen of Scots, Katharine Hepburn (who knows) and Rose Wilder of Laura Ingalls Wilder fame. All this to say: this is the first summer I have created a list for myself of summer reads. There are only two entries but I think that's enough.
1. Jane Eyre: for month's now, St. John Rivers has been an illuminating figure in my life. He deeply believed that God would have him go be a missionary and yet, this belief only made him rigid and unhappy and in essence, a dangerous person. Stepping away from the branch of christianity I was born into, I can't help but seeing this in every person I encountered in that religion, including myself. Rivers allowed himself to be a person only in a very particular way (using God as the justification) and because of that decision, he refused to realize his self. So anyway, it's time to reread Jane Eyre and read over Rivers again and since I have a Norton Critical Edition of Jane Eyre, I'm ready to go!
2. Tess of the d'Ubervilles: I've held out on Hardy for a long time. Reading archaic dialect is not my idea of a pleasure reading but hells. I recently read a short story about a girl reading Tess and Wuthering Heights for Her summer reading and lets just say I've been inspired. Besides, if I read Tess, I know I'll understand the aforementioned short story in a much deeper way. And that's like swinging candy in front of a candy addict. So does anyone out there have a Summer Reading List too? Show and tell!
