Foundational Books, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the June 4 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melisa Maygrove, and Jean Davis!

This month's question:

June 4 question - What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?

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There's something special about books you read in childhood and young adulthood, isn't there? The root they take in your heart and mind is deeper and stronger than things you read in other phases of life (at least that's how it's gone for me). 

 

I've written about this before, in particular about revisiting those books as an adult--it can be fraught, because sometimes those works don't hit the same way when you read them with more experience under your belt, and you see unsavory things that sailed past you as a child. 

 

So a few books that have stayed important to me: 

 

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I first read this when I was 12 or so years old, and it was a revelation. After years and years of "good" and "nice" girls, here was an unreliable, weird, and dangerous young woman narrator. Witchy and wild, and judgmental about the people in the town. 

As the story evolved and I learned more about her family history and her past actions, my heart started beating faster. It felt *transgressive*, like I was getting away with reading something subversive, and that has stayed a part of me every since, both in what I like to read and what I write. 

I still read at least part of this book nearly every October, and it still works for me every single time. If pressed to choose a "favorite book of all time," this is often my choice. 

I did also like fine, upstanding characters…not just the misfits and miscreants. In elementary school, (maybe 3rd or 4th grade?) I plowed through TONS of Nancy Drew books. Some of them had been my mother's and my grandmother's. Others came from the library (the bookmobile ladies would hide them under the seat for me so they'd still be available when they got to my stop). 

So, I saw a few different versions of Nancy--her looks and details changed across her reboots. One version of her had an eidetic memory, which I found almost as fascinating as ESP and really hoped I would develop. 

Nancy was independent and smart and kind, and her father trusted her to take care of herself, even in risky situations. She had wonderful and supportive friends, too. I LOVED that, and I'm still attracted to stories that give the characters agency and skill. 

I haven't read a Nancy Drew since childhood, but she still gets a piece of my heart. 

Another foundational mythology for me was Grimm's Fairy Tales. I had a lot of versions of these--the ones my German great-grandmother would tell me from memory, good old Disneyfications, and various tellings and retellings from illustrated volumes. 

I especially loved all the ones about clever girls escaping harm and rescuing those around them. "The Feather Bird," "The Old Woman in the Wood," "The Twelve Brothers," "The Robber Bridgeroom," and of course, "Hansel and Gretel" (honestly, Gretel's name should go first).  

Childhood can be a time of feeling helpless and small, even when you have a relatively safe, secure, and loving family. So, these stories of girls who were underestimated proving that they do indeed have what it takes? Yeah. That still works for me.

So, if you find me and my work subversive, feminist, and a little feral? Well, it's not my fault. Blame Merricat, Nancy, and Gretel. They helped make me who I am. 

I still LOVE reading, but now I'm a writer and a well-educated critically-thinking adult…so I analyze while I read in a different way than I did when I was only looking to lose myself in a story. That said, I feel like I'm developing a whole new set of foundational books as a writer. They feed and inspire me in entirely different ways. I may have to follow up with a post about those--the books that are making me now. 

How about you? What books made you who you are? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.