My favorite book I had to read for a class

#10Days10Books 

Day 2: Best book I had to read for a class

I thought about this all day long today, and I decided that there wasn't really one best book I had to read for a class, but that there was one best category of books I had to read for a class.

As I mentioned yesterday, I didn't actually read a lot of kid lit books when I was a kid. When I was about eight someone made a comment to me about reading a Nancy Drew book. (Which was entirely appropriate for an 8-year-old.) The commenter felt like the comment was teasing, but in keeping with research that shows that teasing is usually not enjoyed by the recipient, for sensitive 8 year old me the comment felt disparaging. And so I stopped reading kid lit. There was a bookmobile that came to a park near my elementary school, which meant  I got all of my books during that time period unsupervised by any adult. Somehow I migrated towards completely inappropriate adult books, and that's what I read from about 9 years on. And no adult paid attention to what I was reading, except to be impressed that I was reading adult books. 🤦‍♀️

As part of my elementary education program at BYU I had to take a children's literature class. I wasn't very excited, I had decided that children's literature didn't have much value. And so I was very surprised to find out how much I absolutely loved it. I read all of the books that were required for my class and many many more, and that was the start of an adult life of loving kid lit.

So thank you to whoever designed that education program for reintroducing me to the books I should have been reading all along. I wish I could go back to 8-year-old Cindy and give her a hug and tell her to keep reading things that are fun. So glad I finally got back to them. 

(Although A Taste of Blackberries is hardly fun, it's gut wrenching. As was A Bridge to Terabithia which I also just remembered that we also had to read.)