Lately I've found myself revisiting many books that I'd loved as a child, most of which I still love. Little Women... the Anne of Green Gables series... the Little House books... Charlotte Sometimes, A Girl of the Limberlost, An Old-Fashioned Girl, The Lamplighter, Summer of My German Soldier, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Jacob Have I Loved, Bridge to Terebithia, Harriet the Spy. I could go on and on, as I suspect that you could, too... Reading them now, I appreciate anew their charm and warmth and wit; and I imagine the day that my little daughters will encounter them for the first time. How wonderful, to discover these stories-- to read them without prior knowledge of how they develop and end! Will my girls be enthralled? I hope so. (If not, they're sure to laugh at how excited I'll be!)
Over the weekend I was lucky enough to pick up a number of classic YA novels from the local thrift shop, among them a newer one I'd never read: Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson (one of my favorite authors in this genre). And so of course, I couldn't rest until I'd finished it, right? ...Well worth the late hours! Set in the 1840s, Lyddie is the story of a farm girl, her family broken by poverty and mental illness, who labors in the textile factories of Lowell, MA in hope of earning enough to reunite her brothers and sisters. I think that Patterson does an excellent job of conveying a central tension of that time and place: While arduous working conditions provoke Lowell women to organize against company management, at the same time the factory offered girls like Lyddie economic and cultural advantages that they could never have experienced at home on the farm. From one perspective, it was "wage slavery"; but from another, it was unprecedented independence and (yes, yes) empowerment. As the story progresses, Lyddie must negotiate these tensions to decide what she really wants to do with her life-- and claiming that ability to choose is, for her (as it would be for most women of her day), an astonishing step. I couldn't put it down!
One caveat: I wouldn't give this novel to my daughters until they were at least 12, and even then I would plan to discuss with them some of the situations encountered therein. I think particularly of a manager's attempts to take sexual advantage of his female employees (two instances, both assertively thwarted by the women, no indelicate or gratuitous detail); and the extramarital pregnancy of one of Lyddie's co-workers, which the book seems to interpret as a matter of personal freedom v. stifling paternalistic morality. ... Moms, definitely vet this one beforehand!
...If you have a moment, please suggest to me your favorites! What books did you love as a young girl?
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Monday, July 16, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
To Henry Rago, poet and De Paul alumnus
"Laughter and books and wine are holy things; and living is good; and death is a breathlessness with the whole adventure of finding everywhere the traces of one great beauty..."
~Henry Rago, "Plea for Uncommon Sense," De Paulia (February 4, 1937) 2.
Dear Henry Rago,
I met you in 1936. (You never met me.) It was when you began that column for the De Paul University newspaper, and-- well, your words leapt out of that blurry microfilm image and gleamed. Just gleamed! I began to look forward to finding your column, again and again; I even fancied that I could discern your cadence in unsigned editorials. Later, in the files of Chicago Inter-Student Catholic Action, I found a short play that you'd written in 1940-- a clever anti-war skit that made me laugh out loud--as well as a few poems, all of which strengthened an impression I'd already received: that, if I'd been at De Paul in 1936-37, I'd have been, well, intrigued.
But from a distance. While you described yourself as "timid," you seemed popular and involved in everything-- from CISCA to newspaper to drama to Homecoming and intramural sports-- so no, I would never have braved the writerly crowd surrounding your booth at Pixley's or the Roma! And if I had, could I have joined your banter on the Mystical Body implications of a cheeseburger. . . ?
Researching a (21st-century) dissertation on collegiate Catholic Action, however, I took the liberty of citing your poems and newspaper columns as illustrations of a developing liturgical/social justice culture among Depression-era Catholic youth. (I hope that you don't mind.)
Looking further, I'm thrilled to find that--no shock!-- you'd indeed become a renowned poet, theology professor, and editor of the well-known literary journal Poetry. Today you have your own web tribute, one much more fitting than any I could construct... since, after all, I only watched you from afar in your student days, at De Paul in 1936.
PS: While I'd love to share a poem or two that I found in the files of CISCA, I'm concerned about copyright issues-- so instead I'll link to your wonderful "Sonnet for God," which Poetry published in 1934.
~Henry Rago, "Plea for Uncommon Sense," De Paulia (February 4, 1937) 2.
Dear Henry Rago,
I met you in 1936. (You never met me.) It was when you began that column for the De Paul University newspaper, and-- well, your words leapt out of that blurry microfilm image and gleamed. Just gleamed! I began to look forward to finding your column, again and again; I even fancied that I could discern your cadence in unsigned editorials. Later, in the files of Chicago Inter-Student Catholic Action, I found a short play that you'd written in 1940-- a clever anti-war skit that made me laugh out loud--as well as a few poems, all of which strengthened an impression I'd already received: that, if I'd been at De Paul in 1936-37, I'd have been, well, intrigued.
But from a distance. While you described yourself as "timid," you seemed popular and involved in everything-- from CISCA to newspaper to drama to Homecoming and intramural sports-- so no, I would never have braved the writerly crowd surrounding your booth at Pixley's or the Roma! And if I had, could I have joined your banter on the Mystical Body implications of a cheeseburger. . . ?
Researching a (21st-century) dissertation on collegiate Catholic Action, however, I took the liberty of citing your poems and newspaper columns as illustrations of a developing liturgical/social justice culture among Depression-era Catholic youth. (I hope that you don't mind.)
Looking further, I'm thrilled to find that--no shock!-- you'd indeed become a renowned poet, theology professor, and editor of the well-known literary journal Poetry. Today you have your own web tribute, one much more fitting than any I could construct... since, after all, I only watched you from afar in your student days, at De Paul in 1936.
PS: While I'd love to share a poem or two that I found in the files of CISCA, I'm concerned about copyright issues-- so instead I'll link to your wonderful "Sonnet for God," which Poetry published in 1934.
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