The Flashlight
There's a recurring theme or thread through nearly every writer's life. We all loved to read as kids. We devoured everything we could get our hands on.
I tell stories of signing out the eight-book library limit in second grade and begging my mom to bring me back one day later to get new ones. I owned every Nancy Drew ever published, read Anne of Green Gables, every Little House book, and then in third grade my father started me on an unabridged Sherlock Holmes . . . Robinson Crusoe . . . She . . . A Tale of Two Cities. He gave me an amazing gift--CHALLENGING books. And my mom? I ALWAYS saw her reading. (Still do.) They told me books were everything--they opened the door to education, to all the knowledge you could ever want. Right there at your fingertips.
I asked for books for my birthday. I preferred them to people, and certainly to sunshine. I rarely went outside if I could avoid it . . . except in summers when I went to stay with my grandparents and lived in a bungalow near a lake. But there were still delicious rainy days.
Nearly every writer I know has the same tale. "I would hide with a flashlight under my covers to finish the book after my parents told me 'lights out.'"
I remember the FEEL of fresh, crisp pages when I got a new hardcover book. Words were magic . . .
And even now, when I meet someone and they tell me what their "flashlight" books were . . . if it was Little Men or Jane Eyre, I will somehow feel a kindred bond, as if YES, this person knows a little bit about me, even though they might be practically a stranger.
So what transported you? What were your flashlight books? And how did they shape you?
I tell stories of signing out the eight-book library limit in second grade and begging my mom to bring me back one day later to get new ones. I owned every Nancy Drew ever published, read Anne of Green Gables, every Little House book, and then in third grade my father started me on an unabridged Sherlock Holmes . . . Robinson Crusoe . . . She . . . A Tale of Two Cities. He gave me an amazing gift--CHALLENGING books. And my mom? I ALWAYS saw her reading. (Still do.) They told me books were everything--they opened the door to education, to all the knowledge you could ever want. Right there at your fingertips.
I asked for books for my birthday. I preferred them to people, and certainly to sunshine. I rarely went outside if I could avoid it . . . except in summers when I went to stay with my grandparents and lived in a bungalow near a lake. But there were still delicious rainy days.
Nearly every writer I know has the same tale. "I would hide with a flashlight under my covers to finish the book after my parents told me 'lights out.'"
I remember the FEEL of fresh, crisp pages when I got a new hardcover book. Words were magic . . .
And even now, when I meet someone and they tell me what their "flashlight" books were . . . if it was Little Men or Jane Eyre, I will somehow feel a kindred bond, as if YES, this person knows a little bit about me, even though they might be practically a stranger.
So what transported you? What were your flashlight books? And how did they shape you?
posted by Erica Orloff at 3:14 PM
18 Comments:
My grandmother deserves a lot of credit for encouraging me to read as a youngster. When I was a wee lad, only 3 I think, she bought all ten volumes of The Bible Book (Volume One of which you always see in doctors' offices), and she read to me every day at the breakfast table. It not only helped me learn about The Bible(always a good thing for a writer to know), it ingrained the beauty and rhythm of well-written English into my developing brain.
Sometime during second grade, she hired a tutor to help me with my reading lessons. I still remember the tutor's name (Mrs. Conway).
My grandmother's philosophy was that if you could read well you could learn anything. Smart lady. I can't remember if I ever thanked her. I need to call her soon and do that.
Hi Jude:
My father's mother bought me A Tale of Two Cities when I got my tonsils out, but it was only later--maybe when I was 11 or 12, that I got how poetic the book was. But yes, yes . . . most of us owe a huge debt to the people who encouraged us to read.
E
I still have my tonsils, haha, scarred and riddled from infection as they are. I did lose my appendix when I was nine, though. I remember scoring a pretty big stack of Spiderman comic book from that near-death experience. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
OMG this post was like reading about myself. Every Saturday morning from age 8 I was allowed to catch the bus to the library in town (bus stopped outside) and I'd choose my books and go back on bus and be met at the busstop. By the next day I'd read the books and then had another week to wait.
Flashlight books - definitely Little Women, Jo's Boys, Little Men. What Katie Did, What Katie Did Next. Heidi, Heidi Grows Up, Ballet Shoes. Enid Blyton Mallory Towers and St Clares........
And the magical feel of new, hardback books - I still get it.
I'm sitting here feeling all nostaligic, lol.
I had so many books I loved as a kid - the Anne of Green Gables books and mostly everything by Enid Blyton. I loved anything about boarding schools and so wanted to go to one. I almost did for high school (and I'm so glad now I didn't - it would have been nothing like in the books).
Sara:
I read all those. I wanted to BE Anne of Green Gables and live in that beautiful place. I'm trying to think about when I decided to not just read but to BE a writer. I'm not sure what was the tipping point for that, but I did always love writing stories.
E
kathrynoh:
I'm an American (native New Yorker) but lived in Bermuda for a few years with my family--4th, 5th, and 6th grades, I think. In any case, living there opened up my eyes to Mallory Towers books, Enid Blyton . . . and I, too, wanted to go to boarding school. It sounded so independent and wonderful. But it was neat to discover those books, which were not as popular in America because the boarding school experience is more typically British.
E
I almost flunked every subject in high school because I would rather read my romance and spy novels than balance equations in chemistry class. The way my folks punished me was to forbid me to read. I became best friends with the only girl in high school who can read faster than me. The first thing my sister and I say to each other when we see each other in person is, "What are you reading?" And my kids and I make regular trips to the library to take out books for them.
Aaahhh, books. The only thing better than books is...sex. No, scratch that. A big Filipino feast. Hehe...
Hi Karm:
My parents were very clever. They would set my bedtime ridiculously early (compared to my friends) and then tell me I could stay up a whole hour later IF I was reading. Well, that was a no-brainer. Then my mom would come in to tell me lights out, and I'd keep begging "one more chapter."
E
You post made me nostalgic and made me smile.
My flashlight books were Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe, then later Demon Seed and Interview with a Vampire.
Ah, to cozy up under the covers, flip on the flashlight, and read read read.
Kate:
I grew up as the daughter of a man from Hell's Kitchen. I would read Black Beauty, too, and Anne of Green Gables, and imagine myself in such a country place, riding a horse (the closest I ever got was pony rides). Now, I live in a pretty countrified spot of the country, so I returned to what I read of. Next step is to buy a horse this fall.
E
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We didn't have any money growing up so with four kids, the library was our haven. Not only could we find books to be entertained by it was also air conditioned...
I can remember carrying stacks of books out to our old rusty car, my mom by my side with her own stack of books... I would read through mine before the week was out and usually start in on hers... I read everything, anything... I was always reading...
My turning point on wanting to be a writer in the fifth grade, my teacher Ms. Cross a lovely woman who I will never forget, would clip pictures out of magazines and place them all in a box. Each morning we had to select a picture and then write a short story about what was happening in the picture... I was always the first one done and I loved every second of it...
g.
www.themommyclub.blogspot.com
Gina:
LOVE that idea about the magazine pictures! I remember writing "what I did on my summer vacation" when I was in 7th grade--and the teacher said we could "make it up." So I wrote about being chosen for a top-secret government project in which I lived in an underwater pod beneath the ocean as a test program to inhabit beneath the sea to combat overpopulation. I mean . . . 7th grade! I always wanted to make stuff up for a living.
E
Wow, Erica. Can I steal that story idea?
Jude:
It's all yours. :-)
E
I'm late to the party on this one, but I couldn't not post. :)
Most of the "lit-rah-chur" books I didn't read. I've been all about popular fiction my whole life. If I was assigned the book in school, I hated reading it (and sometimes didn't).
Anyway, yes, I read many of those mentioned, including Black Beauty, the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books (and the Bobsey Twins). All the Little House books. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.
But the flashlight books were Sweet Valley High and the young adult romances that Silhouette put out. Then in high school I got into Heinlein and Jude Devereaux and Douglas Adams, and accidentally subscribed to Silhouette Romance (the purple bordered ones) instead of the young adult, and read a bunch of those secretly.
My kids beg to read extra at night, and I always have to let them. Otherwise, I'd be the worst kind of hypocrite. :)
Natalie!!!
I forgot about those Peppers!! Thanks for bringing a smile to my face as I remembered that one.
E
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