You guys need to take the internet away from me. Seriously, I'm doing way too many of these things now. Regardless, I'm still starting it!
Emlyn Chand is doing a year long challenge on her blog. If you choose to participate, you'll post an introduction post on why you love reading. Then, once a month, you post a review about the books that made you love reading from way back when. Read her blog for all the details, but it's a pretty sweet deal (especially because
The Runaway Bunny totally counts).
There are so many reasons why I love reading, but the obvious one to me is the transportation to another world. I could be anyone or anything if just for a moment. I could be a mouse running from an owl, or a teddy bear looking for his lost button, or just a boy who had a really tough life and is growing up.
I love reading because I love writing. And I know how piss poor some of my earlier writing is because I've started reading again recently. I devoured books when I was younger, but when I majored in Literature in college - and most of my reading experiences were around classics and clad with papers and analysis - reading lost a lot of its fun. No, rather, analyzing books was just too much. Why couldn't I get lost in the story of Robinson Crusoe? Why did I have to look for passages to underline for a paper later? I'm sure when these authors originally wrote, it was to entertain. Not have you write a ten page paper on the difference between Shelley's Frankenstein and the movie (pick a version) that would come out years upon years upon years later.
No, I love reading because I can wrap myself up in the book. Lose myself in the character and float around in someone else's head for awhile. It's a bit voyeuristic, to love watching people unfold in books. (I people watch too, but that's another story for another day).
While reading academically is important, I think it is important because it makes your a better writer - and not a better paper writer, but a better story teller.
Some of the books that inspired me, when I was younger (these are the ones I plan on re-reading in 2012,in order of to be read):
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
All the Money in the World by Bill Brittain
Bunnicula by James Howe
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Poppy by Avi
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K.Rawling
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Blue Coyote by Liza Ketchum
Why Do Birds by Damon Knight
Most of these are middle school years, but there were some random days that I went shelf-browsing in High School. I'll explain my reasons for loving them when I read each of them and post for the challenge ;)
One mention that I want to say (that I'm not going to review) is
The Hot Zone. Wait, Rachel, are you telling me you
read that when you were younger?
I was a weird kid, what can I say. In ninth grade, I was offered extra credit to read one of the books on my biology's teacher's shelf. I read half of it, and stopped because it made me so queasy. But it began my epic love for horror and all things horror-filled. I still get to the same spot year after year and have to stop reading. I will try to read that this year, finally, but for my To Be Read Pile Challenge - not this one. :)
Terrance Wade presents his summer vacation story to his second grade class. Told from his perspective, he explains how his mother whisks him away on an adventure - of course, we all know that Terrance was kidnapped. But he doesn't care - his mother has an important mission for them: Terrance has to save the world. Terrance's voice is whimsical and silly.
