3.07.2007

I'm Feeling Lonely...

...so I'm doing a meme even though no one tagged me. This one's stolen from MotherReader, who stole it from Big A little a, who stole it from The Miss Rumphius Effect. (Okay, "stealing" is perhaps perjorative.)

1. What are your five most important books?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. THE Great American Novel.
Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry. Anastasia is the reason I live in Massachusetts.
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Made me want to be a writer. (A very, very bad writer, as it turned out.)
The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Riverside edition. What I did in college.
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber. First time I realized that grownup books could be funny, too.

2. What is an important book you admit you haven’t read?
For someone who claims to be a big reader, the number of important books I haven't read is rather staggering. Let's just say for now that I've never read any Gary Paulsen and I've never read any of the big Russian novelists (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc.).

3. What classic (or childhood favorite) was a little disappointing on rereading?
The Westing Game was one of my two Big Childhood Books (Superfudge was the other). Rereading it as an adult was not in itself disappointing -- it's still a kickass book, and I still want that t-shirt -- but the context in which I read it was. I reread this for my first and only book club meeting, an informal group of Boston-based children's book people, and the rest of them all hated it. They thought it was too gimmicky, too coincidental, too transparent in its plotting. Granted, we read it along with the other Newbery books from that year -- The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox and M.C. Higgins the Great by Virginia Hamilton -- so I could understand somewhat how a semi-comic contemporary mystery would seem less impressive in context. But still. I sort of felt like somebody stabbed my puppy.

4. What book do you (or did you) care most about sharing with your kids?
I'm so glad my daughter loves Click Clack Moo, the oeuvre of Mo, and the Lilly books. I am excited to read her Charlotte's Web and the aforementioned Westing Game. (I assume my son will love books, too -- he just hasn't articulated his tastes yet.)

5. Name an acclaimed book, either classic or contemporary, that you just don’t like.
King Dork by Frank Portman. Hated it. I am also lukewarm about Goodnight Moon, though I confess it is/has been the first regular bedtime book for both of my children. Freaky, ugly-ass rabbits aside, there's something lulling about that text that's unmatched by any other book I've tried.

7 comments:

Chris Barton said...

Superfudge! I treated my entire fourth grade class to a reading of my newly acquired hardback of Superfudge.

I have no idea why I was allowed to do that, or whether anyone else enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.

Anyway, we must be kindred spirits, because The Westing Game was huge for me, too.

EM said...

124 times, Chris - I read each one 124 times. I'm not sure Superfudge had a cover by the time I was done.

MotherReader said...

It's certainly not stealing and I'm glad you did the meme. I love your haikus, but it's fun to get chance to know a little bit more about you. For instance, how's life going with the new baby?

I used to tag kid lit blogs with meme's, but it seemed to be Not Done, so now I send out a general tag.

Anonymous said...

The Westing Game is one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITES of all time. The characters are so vivid, and the mystery is brilliant. I find that the older I get, the more emotional I become at the end of the book.

Trailer Pixie said...

Hey there Emily.

I just stumbled across your blog, and I think it's very cool. Not only that you're reviewing in Haiku, but that Haiku and Review rhyme.

So smart.

Drop me a line,

I'm about to have a baby, and I'm in MA too.

Kristen
pixie stix kids pix
kristen@abfc.com

Anonymous said...

I tried to leave a comment two weeks ago when I found your site (which I love -- what a great concept!). I'm giving it another try, so you feel less lonely -- I even linked to you on my sidebar.

Mrs. K
readathon.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

I started King Dork.
It was all tell and no show.
So I put it down.