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Digging Up the Past
Jun. 22nd, 2004 08:06 pmOne of the common elements I have noted among my fellow former Gifted and Talented children is a tendency to be rather proud of reading books far, far beyond their reading level at an extraordinarily early age. More of my friends than I can remember have commented to me that they read Lord of the Rings, War and Peace, Shakespeare's plays, and physics textbooks before they were old enough to enter public school.
Myself, I was busy reading children's books at that age. Not very sophisticated, I know. But when I was four years old, the plot developments in 'Frog and Toad Are Friends' were just more interesting to me than those in 'A Winter's Tale.' I wasn't particularly discriminating, either. My grandmother was a children's librarian, and she brought me home a rather eclectic collection of books. I read The Poky Little Puppy and The Secret Garden, Bobsey Twins and Goosebumps and All of a Kind Family, and the Red Fairy Book and the Green Fairy Book and the Blue Fairy Book and the Gold, Pink, and at least six others. I read Newbury award winners, and I read books that noone else has ever heard of. (If anyone else out there has read Paul Gallico's 'The House That Wouldn't Go Away,' please let me know so I can prove to myself for once and for all that it wasn't a cough-syrup hallucination....). And while I sometimes feel like a late bloomer for not tackling Tolkien until I was ten, I'm mostly glad that I didn't miss out on all of those other stories.
I grew up. Eventually, I did read Tolkien, and Shakespeare, and physics textbooks, though I never have quite gotten up the courage to tackle War and Piece. I've read books that probably weigh more than I did when I learned to read. And they're good, too. But.... I've made a lot of resolutions in my life, and I've even kept a few of them, but right now I think the most important one is to keep reading children's books. Not necessarily the old ones - I don't need to read them again. But sometimes the new ones are full of delicious surprises....
(This post brought to you by Louis Sachar's 'Holes.' The book and the movie both. Tasty juvie lit goodness. Read it, then watch it, then read it again.)
Myself, I was busy reading children's books at that age. Not very sophisticated, I know. But when I was four years old, the plot developments in 'Frog and Toad Are Friends' were just more interesting to me than those in 'A Winter's Tale.' I wasn't particularly discriminating, either. My grandmother was a children's librarian, and she brought me home a rather eclectic collection of books. I read The Poky Little Puppy and The Secret Garden, Bobsey Twins and Goosebumps and All of a Kind Family, and the Red Fairy Book and the Green Fairy Book and the Blue Fairy Book and the Gold, Pink, and at least six others. I read Newbury award winners, and I read books that noone else has ever heard of. (If anyone else out there has read Paul Gallico's 'The House That Wouldn't Go Away,' please let me know so I can prove to myself for once and for all that it wasn't a cough-syrup hallucination....). And while I sometimes feel like a late bloomer for not tackling Tolkien until I was ten, I'm mostly glad that I didn't miss out on all of those other stories.
I grew up. Eventually, I did read Tolkien, and Shakespeare, and physics textbooks, though I never have quite gotten up the courage to tackle War and Piece. I've read books that probably weigh more than I did when I learned to read. And they're good, too. But.... I've made a lot of resolutions in my life, and I've even kept a few of them, but right now I think the most important one is to keep reading children's books. Not necessarily the old ones - I don't need to read them again. But sometimes the new ones are full of delicious surprises....
(This post brought to you by Louis Sachar's 'Holes.' The book and the movie both. Tasty juvie lit goodness. Read it, then watch it, then read it again.)
