Topic: just for fun

Great literature takes larger social issues and encapsulates them in a single family or character, putting a face and a name on the issue, allowing the character to take us by the hand and walk us through their story so that we see things with different eyes. Once we turn the last page we find our selves forever changed.

Gifts From the Sea has just done this for me as did The Poisonwood Bible, The Grapes of Wrath, Things Fall Apart, Cry the Beloved Country, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Which books have challenged and changed you?

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2 Reply by j p lundstrom (edited by j p lundstrom 2015-01-16 04:04:32)

Re: just for fun

Don't laugh--when I saw this post, the first thing that came to mind was The Adventures of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting.  Are you kidding me?  Communication between the species?  The first step toward science fiction!  It was enough to boggle the eight-year-old mind.  Plus, I'd never heard anything like all those British-sounding sentences, living out there in the wilds of southern California.  I followed my mother around, book in hand, asking the questions that came up with every page.  And then, when the doctor started traveling all over the world, my mind was made up.  I would travel to all those places, exchange ideas with the great  minds of all species, and someday write books about it.  Well, it was a lofty goal for a kid, and I have accomplished some of it, and now it's time to write it.  JP
P.S. Sure, I did read all that other stuff, the intellectual junk, but Doctor Dolittle did it all for me.  If all you know about him is what you learned from some second-rate movies, I pity you.  And if I had to read those old books as an adult, you'd pity me.  They're strictly for eight-year-olds.

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3 Reply by pamelablack62 (edited by pamelablack62 2015-01-16 15:09:25)

Re: just for fun

not laughing.  What we read in childhood changes us like no other reading.  It helps shape the person we will one day be.  I hadn't even considered the books I read as a child, but you are absolutely right, they play a direct roll in who we become.

PS  I still read children's book for my own pleasure.  I love them.

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4 Reply by Mariana Reuter (edited by Mariana Reuter 2015-01-16 16:11:43)

Re: just for fun

I love children's books too! I've just read The Spiderwick Chronicles and found them amazing!

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Re: just for fun

Mariana Reuter wrote:

I love children's books too! I've just read The Spiderwick Chronicles and found them amazing!

Harry Potter took the world by storm, adults included.

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Re: just for fun

LOL! I should have mentioned Harry Potter. I read them as a teenager and enjoyed them like nothing else.

Kiss

Gacela.

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