Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Summer Reading for Young People

photo © Chibi for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

Can you stand more on summer reading? (I just started The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, by the way.) "ShelfTalker," a blog I read regularly, is by 2 women who run independent children's bookstores. One of them wrote about the dismal state of student's summer reading lists. Most of the lists she saw were classic titles by dead white men. So she asked her readers what books they would include on a summer reading list for young people. Click here for the result. Even if you are more young at heart than young, you might like to try some of these.

As for classics, yes, there's a reason they are classics. Two classics that I loved as a young person were Heidi and Black Beauty--both by dead white women. What classics did you love as a young person?

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jane,

    A friend of mine gave me a copy of "The Glass Castle" with the preface of "This is what growing up was like for me." I learned a lot about my friend.

    I also learned about the power of autobiography. It isn't self indulgent or scandalous if you just write what happened.

    I've read it twice so far. Once because of my friend and once because the writing is so beautiful.

    Elizabeth

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