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conulyQuest for a Maid. That book still holds up after all these years, and is one of the few books of my childhood I can quote from accurately, no matter how often I read them and re-read them. (The only other line that springs to mind is the one about how "Saving the penny and walking was a great feature of their childhood." Yeah, Fossils, me too. Join the club.)
I was re-reading Quest the other day and Eva asked me what it was about, so I quoted that first line to her. She's not big on books with death in them, so she rejected it out of hand, and was a little surprised when I told her that that's actually one of the great formative books of my childhood. I have a list, in fact: Quest for a Maid, Dragon's Milk, So You Want to Be a Wizard, Behind the Attic Wall, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Ballet Shoes, Bridge to Terebithia, and A Little Princess. Oh, and Beauty. That's quite a list, and I'm not sure what it says about me now that I put all the books together like that, other than that I liked to read fantasy - and in my life, escaping the Nazis or being sent to boarding school or being a child actress was just as much a fantasy as saving an intelligent sports car while in company of a talking white hole or raising dragon hatchlings.
Of course, this is the list I made today. Tomorrow or next week I might pick a largely different set of books as "the great formative books of my childhood". Really, I think the important thing is that they were all important in shaping my personality, even the ones I mostly have forgotten. I wonder if my list is very different from other people's lists, though. What books did everybody else peg as being hugely influential to their worldviews?
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I was re-reading Quest the other day and Eva asked me what it was about, so I quoted that first line to her. She's not big on books with death in them, so she rejected it out of hand, and was a little surprised when I told her that that's actually one of the great formative books of my childhood. I have a list, in fact: Quest for a Maid, Dragon's Milk, So You Want to Be a Wizard, Behind the Attic Wall, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Ballet Shoes, Bridge to Terebithia, and A Little Princess. Oh, and Beauty. That's quite a list, and I'm not sure what it says about me now that I put all the books together like that, other than that I liked to read fantasy - and in my life, escaping the Nazis or being sent to boarding school or being a child actress was just as much a fantasy as saving an intelligent sports car while in company of a talking white hole or raising dragon hatchlings.
Of course, this is the list I made today. Tomorrow or next week I might pick a largely different set of books as "the great formative books of my childhood". Really, I think the important thing is that they were all important in shaping my personality, even the ones I mostly have forgotten. I wonder if my list is very different from other people's lists, though. What books did everybody else peg as being hugely influential to their worldviews?
Mammoth Find Moves Humans in Arctic Back 10,000 Years
10 Incredible Real Life MacGyver Moments That Saved Lives
Scientists weigh in on 'giraffe relative' fossil
Amazon quietly builds its own shipping company
Signals that make early stem cells identified
Wheels, Pyramids And Plates: USDA's Struggles To Illustrate Good Diet
Warped Wood Sculptures by Artist Paul Kaptein
The Texan Who Invented Chili Powder Also Accidentally Created the American Taco
14 Showcased Facts About ‘The Price is Right’
Incredible Gravity Map of the Earth’s Seafloors
Tribes say stronger self-governance key to future success
How a man accused of million-dollar fraud uncovered a never before seen, secret surveillance device
What you eat can influence how you sleep
We are most vulnerable to temptation when it feels like we're in the middle of something
French Jews ask: Is wearing your faith a risk, or a right?
The NSA releases its first transparency report under the US Freedom Act
Planned Parenthood sues anti-abortion group behind secret videos
4,000 artifacts stored at Oregon refuge held by armed group
Chinese marines' desert operations point to long-range ambitions
Russia's Pivot to China Is Real
What It’s Like to Live in the Capital of the ‘Caliphate’
California temporarily curbing water to spare vanishing fish
Indonesia says attack underlines emergence of Islamic State threat
Climate change disaster is biggest threat to global economy in 2016, say experts
Behind frontline, Iraq town torn as anti-IS forces clash
The Kurds are ready to retake Mosul. Now they just need the Iraqi army.
In Syrian Town Cut Off From the World, Glimpses of Deprivation
Fierce clashes as regime battles IS in Aleppo: monitor
Is It Time for the US to Pull Out of Iraq and Syria?
ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate'
What happens to lone child migrants?
Israel's Arabs face backlash after Tel Aviv shooting
Burkina troops retake hotel after Islamist attack kills dozens
