Gearing up for the Summer of “Shelf Discovery”
I combed the stacks where I live now (like many of you, I’ve lived so many places that ‘home’ is a complicated word, fraught with baggage) for some of the books for this summer’s reading project, the Summer of Shelf Discovery. Skurnick writes about a whopping seventy-plus books. While the project is to just read one of them a week, I suspect I may get a little, um,. ambitious, about acquiring and reading books. But here’s what I started with:
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield (Fisher, though that’s not on this edition)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (with the sci-fi 1976 cover)
Oh, I’m looking forward to reading these again.
June 1st, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Like you, I suspect some weeks I’ll read more than one book. But I may–OK, will–read some books not even on the list. I’m having an “appetizer course” this weekend by reading Eleanor Cameron’s The Room Made of Windows, which I loved as a kid. I’ll also use this time to read things I never got around to. Like A Wrinkle in Time. Yeah, yeah, I know. Lame.
June 2nd, 2012 at 7:03 am
Amy, I’m really interested to hear from people who read things for the first time that others have ingrained affection for. I recommended Anne of Green Gables to an adult friend, once and she didn’t get the love. Early impression makes a difference, I think. Or not, as we may see.
June 2nd, 2012 at 10:20 am
Or the reverse–I read something I loved as a kid, and find it disappointing. I’m afraid to revisit Little Women, as I know a lot of people who didn’t like it once they reached adulthood.
June 4th, 2012 at 8:37 am
Excellent. We’re starting on A Wrinkle in Time tonight. Minneapolis peeps: I just so happen to have two copies of this fine book if someone would like to borrow one … I can meet you at the NE coffeeshop or somewhere close by, just send me an email: kristibelcamino@gmail.com
xoxo