Is there a book you reread regularly? What makes it re-readable? Is it because it always stays the same -- or because it doesn't? (Stephen Marche's article "Centireading Force: Why Reading a Book 100 Times Is a Good Idea" may shed some light.)
I asked the lazyweb (a term I learned from Charlie Jane Anders) and got some interesting answers. This week I'll focus on children's books.
The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. I just came across it maybe five years ago, reading it to Samuel. I've since bought almost everything I can find by Kate DiCamillo and have been consistently delighted. The Magician's Elephant is a kid's book but it is also this bold and gorgeous assertion of magic in this world, and how we create communities and families and love where we don't even expect it, like a strong hand knocking us backwards, as the book says at one point. It takes about two hours to read start to finish, so it is good for an airplane ride and some pondering, when I need to remember that rich and complex joy in the world. Sometimes I think the older we get, the more we forget the really simple good things, and sometimes allegories disguised as children's books about elephants falling from the sky help us remember, sneakily.
- The Phantom Tollbooth. I vividly remember the first time I read this book - where we lived, my favorite reading places etc. I guess that re-reading it makes me feel a little less stressed by the ongoing complications of my adult life. For most of my life this book has lived in obscurity, but a few years ago it became popular again and is now easily available. I still read my original copy, complete with stains from the peanut butter crackers I used to munch on while reading.
- I first read Catcher in the Rye at about 13 and thought Holden was just the coolest boy on the planet. I read it again at 16 and thought he, like, totally GOT me. I read it again at about 20 and he seemed less cool. And then I read it for the last time at about 24 and found Holden to be self-obsessed and annoying. I still love the book, though, and flip through it every now and again because I feel like it will ward off my own terrible prose, but I haven't re-read it since my twenties. But my favorite quote about the re-reading of books was about Dan Quayle, whose wife said that he tries to read Plato's Republic every year. I'm pretty sure that's not exactly what she meant, though.
- I read The Outsiders every other year to my little schoolers, I have now read it aloud at least 3 times, (and more to myself) and every time I have to have a student finish reading Johnny's letter because I just can't get through it without crying. Every year, the kids get it. They totally get it. I reread it aloud so that they can hear what "voice" is like in a novel (there's a distinct shortage of that, I think, in current teen lit; it's also what makes Catcher so good). That, and she wrote the thing at 16 and it's the first real "teen" genre book. I'm not sure I quite answered your question, though.... I think The Outsiders is possibly one of the best books ever written. About anything. By anyone.
- Harry Potter. For some reason I have chosen books 1, 5 and 7 as the ones I re-read most often, either in print or on audio CDs.
Other titles mentioned: Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time.
Thanks, Dave Armstrong, Alicia Bailey, Andrew Braun, Heather Powell Browne, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, Gina Chen-Arms, Rebecca Hoogs, Kris Kanthak, Kathleen Kirk, Kyle Larsen, Steve Lawson, Andrea Lucard, Heather McHale, Josie Mills, Sarah Milteer, Emma Mitchell, Amanda Newman, Tonja Olive, Andrew Oppenheimer, Giselle Restrepo, Jim Risner, Paul Sampson, Sue Spengler, Sanjaya Thakur, Amanda Udis-Kessler, Joanne Uppendahl, David Weinstock, Sara Winters, Dina Wood, Nethery Wylie.
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