Girls Who LOVE Books
At the Guardian, Alice Wignall uses the opening of the “Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging” film to muse about “the power of teenage literary passions.” (Link from Bookslut)
The truth is that you never love books the way you do as a young reader. My generation consumed with fanatical zeal the works of Judy Blume and Paula Danziger and the far less wholesome American series, Sweet Valley High. And contemporary teenagers are just as likely to be found with their heads stuck in a book.
I am one of about two people in the universe who didn’t like the Angus book, but I can see why so many do, because it reminded me strongly of two books that I LOVE, Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’ Diary.
I don’t think I do love books I read now, as an adult, as ardently or so well as I did those when I was young. That’s why reading Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Dodie Smith’s I Captured the Castle and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the first time as an adult was bittersweet; I wished I’d been re-reading them since girlhood.
I read Blume and Danziger (The Solid Gold Kid was a favorite), but missed the Sweet Valley High phenomenon by a few years. I was reading Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and the Hardy Boys right up till I started sneaking more salacious fare, like Blume’s Forever and Wifey, Judith Krantz’s Scruples, Princess Daisy and Mistral’s Daughter, Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave, Lace by Shirley Conran, Judith McNaught and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s bodice rippers, Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, and those truly dreadful V.C. Andrews books. Of these, I might have one Pern book still on my shelf. All the rest have been duly and rightfully purged. And yet, I didn’t just love them, I LOVED! them, and I feel affection for them for that, if nothing else.
Wignall’s essay suggests that boys aren’t nearly as impressed by what they read as are girls. I question this, though. Tolkien, Harry Potter? Superman, Batman, X-Men, et al? Where would these be without their fervent boy-reader followings?
How about you–do you love certain books with the same fervor as when you were young?
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I’m not sure that I ever loved any particular books, although I read quite a lot as a kid. Whenever I fill out a questionnaire or meme that asks, “What’s your favorite book?”, I usually answer Amanda/Miranda by Richard Peck simply because the plot of that book stuck with me for years. I also remember enjoying those massive Howard Fast books; before reading those I didn’t know that authors wrote series with the same characters.
Nowadays, any love I may have had for books has been transferred to TV shows. It got to a point where I was only reading two novels a year. I’m trying to balance things out by reading a bit more and watching TV a bit less.
I can see that love of books in my teenage daughter, though. She will reread favorites, which I rarely did. I wish my other two daughters would develop that same love. Unfortunately, required reading in school seems to be beating it out of them.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I don’t fall in love with books as much as I did as a kid–get so swept up in one I lose all time and place. But I have found that rereading certain books (Anne of Green Gables series and Laura Ingalls Wilder specifically) brings me comfort in times of stress. When I can’t take on another set of characters beyond what I’m dealing with in real life, but also am lost if I’m not reading SOMETHING, those well worn books remind me of another time, and knowing the ending (hell, being able to quote the whole thing–The Long Winter, for example) makes me happy.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I read voraciously as a child, but I honestly can’t really think of any books from that period of my life that I LOVED passionately, or come to think of it, that I still care for. I remember being captivated during that time by the “Little House” books, “Anne of Green Gables”, and The Babysitters Club series; I have wanted to revisit the Little House Books, and reread Anne a few years ago, but when I hit my teens, most of my BSC books were sold in yard sales. I also remember liking other youth-oriented books like “Charlotte’s Web” and “Harriette the Spy”, but I don’t think I was one to tout favorite books at that point in my life. I just loved to read. Period.
During my teen years, I think I became slightly more passionate about certain books, as some of the books that I read then I still consider favorites. I adored “The Catcher in the Rye”, “Of Mice and Men”, “East of Eden”, and “Pride & Prejudice”, the latter which I discovered at the age of 15 (and I remember being so captivated by the story that I feigned sick one day so I could stay home and keep reading!). I also love the Harry Potter books (guilty pleasure or not!), which I didn’t pick up until I was 19. To be honest, I think that although I may be a more discerning reader now, I think I’ve become more passionate about books as I’ve gotten older. Perhaps it’s because I’m now more conscious of when a book is mediocre or disappointing that it’s a real treat when I find one that really satisfies me (and that I want to keep on my shelves).
In general though, I’ve discovered that I’m not a big rereader, even when it comes to books that I love. It happens, but generally I prefer to go out and attempt to find new favorites, rather than returning to old ones. I guess I always know they’re there waiting for me. I realize one can rediscover something that’s familiar, but I always regret that you can only read something for the first time once.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I’m not sure that I agree with her premise at all! The only book I can think of off the top of my head that I read before age 18 that remains in my personal pantheon today is “The Great Gatsby.”
And my teenage boys have been voracious readers since the time they discovered that they could read all by themselves, and they’ve shared several obsessions - the Potter books, the Eragon books, a host of graphic novels, and Clive Cussler books - in the last five years.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I listened last night as my 36yo husband and his best friend discussed Elric, Faffyrd and the Grey Mouse (sp?), Lord of the Rings (they had a contest to see if they could name all 13 dwarves from the Hobbit), and a couple other fantasy series that I can’t recall. Clearly, these two guys give the lie to her theory that teen boys don’t love books so passionately so do teen girls.
I LOVED! Amanda/Miranda, and I’m pretty sure my younger sister Sydney did too. I had a MMPB copy with a bodice ripper cover of a sultry brunette being ravished by a shirtless guy. When I went to re-read it as an adult, I kept hiding the cover, it was so trashy. I also LOVED! Anne of Green Gables, and was surprised when I recommended it to a friend as an adult who didn’t. Interestingly, I didn’t always love the books she’d loved as a young girl either–there’s definitely some imprinting on the impressionable going on.
Jeff, it sounds as if your boys are going through that stage to–again giving the lie to it being primarily a female thing. Harry Potter and Eragon have definitely struck a nerve for all sexes. And I think there’s definitely something about boys and fantasy. Maybe it’s most girls, and geeky boys.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I perfectly resemble these thoughts inlcuding the books you loved — except for VC Andrews. Never read those books.
I’ve watched my own girls return to their comfort reads as teens. They all have books that they returned to over and over again.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Yes, there are books that I adore as an adult, just as there are books I adore that I first read in childhood. Many of them are by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, whose fantasies are usually about someone (or more than one) who was abused in some way as a child, and how they overcome it and find power in being an adult. Often a literal power, because it is fantasy she writes. Dorothy Dunnett is another author who has created work that deeply affected me as an adult.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:41 am
You might be on to something about “girls, and geeky boys”. I have been addicted to sci-fi/fantasy since the 4th grade… Alexander Key. I can recall devouring anything by him in the (pitiful) school library. I wanted to dig up one of his old books for my two boys and discovered that “Sprockets: A Little Robot” is so rare that it’s like $60 or more.
And it’s not surprising (at that price) that it just happens to have been ‘lost’ at our local library. It’s very depressing.
But I can vouch for LOVING so many of the books I read at that age (and later) to the point that I am not safe to go to for recommendations. I’m liable to recommend what today would seem like absolute crap.
I tried to get my wife to read Lloyd Alexander and she didn’t have the reaction that I recall having (albeit, I was about 10 when I read him). I loved the Pern books, The Hobbit and LOTR, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, The Dana Girls, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators (I think I had a thing for teen mystery)… I read almost all the Black Stallion series. Add to that anything by David Eddings. And can’t forget Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert (though he gets a bit extreme for early teens, in my opinion).
My biggest struggle is to gauge where my son’s reading level is currently. I want to dive in to my favorites, and I’m realizing I have to be careful. Some things I recall loving are still beyond his emotional level, at the very least, and I don’t want to push too much. Yet, I’m so very excited to share some of these with him! Ah, being patient is killing me!
So we’re starting out with Spiderwick and Narnia and we’ll see where that takes us. So far, it seems to be working.