“I have lived a thousand lives and I have loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time….. Because I read.” George R. R. Martin
“Daddy, read us some more of “The Bobbsey Twins”, please, please!” My journey with books began at an early age. From the age of three or four, my dad would read to my twin sister and me from our favorite book each night before bed. At age seven my mom took me (not my sister) to the library to read about going to the hospital for my eye surgery. It was important to her that I be prepared and see that other children had to do this too. (Unlike my neighbor who told her four year old son he was going to the circus and instead he ended up in the hospital having his tonsils removed)! You can’t make that up.
I graduated to chapter books like Cherry Ames, nurse series and of course my beloved mystery series Nancy Drew. I still love mystery books and have read many series such as all of Sue Grafton’s books as an adult reader.
The library was my sanctuary, a quiet place to explore and learn, a place where you could get lost in someone else’s world for awhile. The tween years were difficult and books helped to navigate through this time. My favorite book was “The Pink Dress” by Anne Alexander. It dealt with a fourteen year old girl and how her life turned upside down the night she attended her school’s Peppermint Prom (in of course, the pink dress), and the coolest boy in junior high asked her to dance.
It was published in 1959 and recently issued on Kindle for $19.99 after sought after copies were selling for between $200.00 and $800.00. I guess I wasn’t the only one who loved the book. It was my first foray into romance like the movie “Sixteen Candles” was for my daughter Jamie.
Similarly, I remember loving the Rosamond Du Jardin books about twin sisters Penny and Pam Howard: “Double Date”, “Double Feature”, “Double Wedding” (you get the idea), all written in the 1950’s. (By the way, the hardcover of “Double Wedding” sells for $80.00 on Amazon if you choose to buy it for your granddaughter).
What fun to revisit the 1950’s. If our grandchildren read these books, it would be like historical fiction to them. How things were for young people in that era. Simple stories, nice escape from modern times. The mindset of the 1950’s was so different. In “The Pink Dress”, it was actually written that “girls don’t call boys because it cheapens them”. What??????
Things seemed much simpler in some respects….stay at home moms, dads who arrived home at the same time each night for family dinner with one telephone located in the kitchen for the whole family. The books did deal with the issues that repeat themselves throughout the generations–adolescent dilemmas like girls and boys and popularity and dating.
It makes me happy that my ten year old grandson Jesse shares my passion for reading (and writing). It seems to have skipped a generation. His vocabulary and grammar are very advanced for fourth grade due to the fact that he reads extensively. He loves basketball and other sports, but also loves sitting on his bed and reading. As Dr. Seuss told us :”The more you read, the more you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go”.
As an adult, my taste runs more towards historical fiction as “the historical novelist exposes the reader to inner lives of people across time and place and in doing so, illuminates history’s untold stories, allowing the reader to experience a more complex truth.”
“Anya, by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer was a book I devoured in my early thirties that had a tremendous impact on me, so much so that I wrote a letter to the author. I could not get Anya out of my head. Maybe it was because it was one of the first books I had read about the Holocaust, or maybe it was so descriptive of places and feelings in exquisite detail that you felt as if you were with Anya in the ghetto in Poland. It was called a “triumph of realism in art” by the New York Times Book Review. I ordered a copy from Thrift Books and plan to reread it when it arrives to see if I still feel the magic.
Finally, my recent historical fiction read was equally unforgettable. “The Four Winds”, by Kristin Hannah took place in a period of time about which I knew very little. It was set in the 1930’s during the Dust Bowl in Texas at the time of The Great Depression. The book focuses on Elsa Martinelli and her daughter Loreda as they try to survive the complete destruction of life as they knew it.
When Elsa’s weak husband abandons them, and her young son almost dies from dust pneumonia, Elsa moves the family from Dust Bowl devastated Texas to California for a better life. She quickly finds that the supposed land of milk and honey does not treat these migrants (or Okies) with kindness or dignity. Like “Anya”, “The Four Winds” deals with a terrible time in history, an enduring battle between the haves and the have nots. In both novels, the hardships, losses, lack of basic necessities and shameful prejudice are hard to witness.
But the overriding message in both books in that human beings can survive against all odds and that love for the family survives everything. Anya, and Loreda and her mom become fiercely strong women and this theme seems to connect the historical fiction I enjoy most.
Loreda speaking about her mother Elsa is so eloquent and powerful: “Her story, which is the story of a time, and a land and the indomitable will of a people is my story; two lives woven together, and like any good story, ours will begin and end and begin again. Love is what remains.”
I must add a footnote that the author added at the end of “The Four Winds”. “As I write this book, it is May, 2020 and the world is battling the coronavirus pandemic. Three years ago, I began writing this novel about hard times in America; the worst environmental disaster in our history; the collapse of the economy; the effect of massive unemployment. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the Great Depression would become so relevant in our modern lives, that I would see so many people out of work, in need and frightened for the future.” I guess history does repeat itself.
.