I just finished Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, the latest Newbery Medal winner. The book is great. It’s easy to see why this book was selected as the winner. What I did find kind of cool was that the book referenced another Newbery Medal winner. It was more than a reference, in fact. It was pretty much an essential part of the book.
Miranda, the main character of When You Reach Me has a favorite book. It is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and she reads it over and over and over again.
A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books as well, and I definitely read it more than once, but not quite as often as Miranda.
I’m not sure how many times I read The Westing Game (another Newbery book) by Ellen Raskin, but it was definitely a minimum of three times. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton was read at least twice, but probably three times. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh was reread a few times. I’m not even going to get into the various picture books and easy readers that were read so many times that I pretty much had them committed to memory.
Did you have any books that you read more than once when you were growing up?
My Books
I wasn’t much of a re-reader because there was always something I was dying to read next. Joel Rosenburg’s THE WARRIORS: GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME was the only book I read more than once.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..Review of Still Sucks To Be Me =-.
Does it count if you simply read a “series” of books all the time? I was a NANCY DREW addict and couldn’t wait for the next one to come out. I think I did read a few of them a second (or third) time. The Hidden Staircase comes to mind. Re-reading the list of titles was a trip!
Yep…The Taffy Sinclair series by Betsy Haynes!
.-= Lluvia´s last blog ..HOW I FIXED THE CLUTTER IN MY READER =-.
I also read “A Wrinkle in Time” over and over. Others: “The Princess Bride,” “Half-Magic,” “Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth,” Grimm’s fairy tales and a few cheesy teen romances whose titles elude me…
Kathy: I loved “Half-Magic” when I was a kid. It was only many years later when I was working in the library that I realized Edward Eager had written other books. Growing up my library had only had “Half-Magic.”
Lluvia: I totally missed out on the Taffy Sinclair series, but I do remember having an obsession with The Babysitter’s Club series.
Aunt B: If Nancy Drew was anything like The Babysitter’s Club (which was the series I read way too much of) then it probably sort of felt like you were reading the same book over and over again with slight variations.
Heather: I think I was re-reader due to necessity, with a small library and not many places around where one could buy decent books I decided to just read the books I already knew that I would like. The Warriors: Guardians of the Flame must be a really good one if even a non-re-reader would read it more than once!
I was also a huge fan of Madeline L’Engle’s books. I also loved P.L.Travers’ Mary Poppins books. Of course, they were WAY better than the movie. Nancy Drew, Behind the Attic Wall, and Bill Brittain’s books were also at the top of the list.
.-= Runner Sami´s last blog ..Fifty States and Weezie =-.
Sam: I have to confess that I have never read the Mary Poppins books or the Nancy Drew books. Behind the Attic Wall sounds really familiar, which makes me think I’ve read it at least once, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read some Bill Brittain books.