Books That Changed Us

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Permalink Reply by Julia Morales on November 22, 2011 at 4:54pm

It may sounds cliche, but the book that has left a major impression on me was 'A Child Called It' by Dave Pelzer. I read the book when I was in 7th grade after I saw it laying on my older sisters dresser for weeks. If I never would have read that book I do not think my major in college would be Psychology.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Neal on November 23, 2011 at 9:46am

Remembrance of Things Past, when I was 7....

Just kidding. Actually, what leaps to mind is book I know a gazillion other people read too (esp. those born in the late 60s or early 70s): How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell.

I read it in elementary school (4th or 5th grade, probably), and it's the first book I remember that totally wrapped me up in a story that wasn't grounded in some sort of fantasy. No ghosts, no wizards, no talking animals. Just a bunch of kids relating to one another pretty much the same way my friends did. I think it was the first time I realized a book didn't need to transport me to some fantasy world/situation in order to be interesting, and to this day I don't often dip into fantasy-based storytelling. My favorite stories are all about people struggling through this world, this life.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Egan on December 9, 2011 at 3:12pm

Corny but true: "To Kill a Mockingbird," read on the heels of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."  Maybe it was the voiceover from the movie version that caught me, but I heard that lyrical, pained narrator in my head as I read this accessible novel for the first time around the age of 10.  In hindsight I realize the novel achieved a triple play: exquisite language, memorable characters, and a commitment to social justice.

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Permalink Reply by Kim Anderson on December 12, 2011 at 10:44pm

The first  book? Boy, that's tough. I remember so many books that really changed my life as a child. The one that comes immediately to mind is Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. I must have been around 9. And Meg was me. And being smart and wearing glasses and loving things too much was suddenly okay--plus there was a whole universe to play around in, a little brother to save, and a tall geeky smart guy to start to fall in love with in an innocent kind of way. Yeah, that's where I lost it to literature.

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Permalink Reply by Sheryl Ann Noethe on January 16, 2012 at 8:00pm

I'm with you on that book, Kim. It opened up galaxies in my imagination, and there were so few books that had brave, headstrong females. The message given, that Meg's temper would save her, was especially beloved because it was my rage that propelled me from an abusive family life into my independence. Who knew girls could save the day? Imagining a tesseract was such a pleasure, and I still dream about them. A precious gift, that

Wrinkle in Time!

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Permalink Reply by Sheryl Ann Noethe on March 1, 2012 at 12:31pm

Another fabulous book that made an indelible impression on me was a copy of Dorothy Parker's short

stories that I found in a drawer in the house my parents bought. The previous tenant must have forgotten it, or, better yet, intuited that a withdrawn nervous wreck of a kid would find it and read it again and again.

I was eleven when I read those stories and I can still recall them.

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