12 May 2004
madeleine, marion, astrid, michael and susan, to name a few
harri3tspy asked about most influential children's (and i'll include young adult here as well) books and authors... and i'll do my best to answer. it would actually take quite a bit more than what i am giving it here, but i hope this does it.
let us start with a list of authors: astrid lindgren, michael ende, susan cooper, marion zimmer bradley, madeleine l'engle, c.s. lewis., laura ingalls wilder, l.m. montgomery.
let us continue with key works: mio mein mio, die br�der l�wenherz, pippi langstrumpf (all by astrid lindgren), momo (michael ende), over sea under stone (susan cooper), the mists of avalon, the firebrand (marion zimmer bradley), a wrinkle in time, a wind in the door, many waters, a ring of endless light (madeleine l'engle), the lion the witch and the wardrobe, the voyage of the dawn treader (cs lewis), the little house books (laura ingalls wilder), ann of green gables (lm montgomery)
instead of saying something about every book, which would be hard, i'll just go by phases in my life.
child, early reader, my mom read the little house books to me and i read them and i wanted to be laura (never mary) and i loved manly wilder as much as laura did, but in a childish way that i thought he was big and protective and sweet. we didn't have tv so i never watched. and also, anne, anne, and gilbert blythe and diana was such a flake.... i, too, could and would have dyed my hair green by accident. and astrid lindgren was always always always there for me; i read her in german translation (recently i have read the swedish): she is full of joy and hapiness and she is uncomplicated, yet deals with life and death and fear and anxiety, and the ways in which a child can deal with those issues.... i also moved into michael ende's momo quickly (it was also read to me), and it is always and forever associated with my best friend loewenzahn from kindergarten. she even read parts of it outloud during my wedding ceremony. momo is wise beyond her years, her gift is listening. and while no one has time (it is being stolen from the adults) and the world is getting ill, she and a turtle (who carries her own time with her) go to the center of time, ultimately to get it back for the world. i still get breathless thinking about it: the center of time is one's own heart, and one can only get there with one's eyes closed, and one cannot speak when one is there but it is full of studenblumen... oh, i can't do it justice, but momo is and always will be my favorite book.
later childhood, i move on, susan cooper and madeleine l'engle both enter my life. susan cooper and madeleine both, for my need for fantasy and escapism, the need for mystery and enchantment and for mrs. who and mrs. whatsit, and for the happy medium. i needed adam grey too, soon, and the seraphim, my first teenage desires in the bodies of the gorgeous men that madeleine painted, men who were there when we needed them, who just knew. they seemed too good to be true, and probably are, but adam grey (with an e, and i can't spell that word with an a because of it - zachary was dark and gray with an a, but never adam)
teenager, fantasy being my realm of being happy, books made me happy, madeleine stayed my mainstay by marion zimmer bradley, too, joined the ranks: powerful women in both mists and the firebrand (troy from cassandra's point of view, and oh how apollo loved her, but she scorned him and he gave her the ability to see into the future yet noone would believe her), powerful women developing sexually and emotionally. feminist fantasy, in some ways, which certainly was good for me.
those were my books, my mainstay. and i can and still do read them.
dandlioneyes at 2:57 pm