Monday, September 14, 2009

nostalgia

today it rained. the changing of seasons always evokes feelings of nostalgia within me. tonight Erin and i were sitting on the porch, it must have been 2 am. suddenly, all of the street lights on the entire block went out...mind you, being that it was early morning and most normal folks were as expected, snuggled deep in their beds...i was surprised at how much quieter everything seemed without electricity present.

erin and i wandered indoors and marveled at the fact that our home was doing just fine, all lights were still on...somehow we got to talking about books....ahh, i mentioned that i really am interested in reading some kurt vonnegut---i feel like i am missing out on some of the classics, and for some reason erin mention the book '1984' and i brought up 'the giver', then we went on a tangent talking about childrens books that i've always loved...'the bridge to terabithia,' anything by roald dahl, 'a wrinkle in time,' 'where the red fern grows,' 'island of the blue dolphins,' 'from the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler,' 'the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe'---(and 'prince caspian' and 'the voyage of the dawn treader'), 'james and the giant peach,' 'the little prince'.

...then the stuff when we were even younger, such as 'where the wild things are'...'the giving tree.'

...nostalgia.

childrens literature really brings back feelings for me...evokes really strong memories and scents. i remember the whole holding of the flashlight under the covers at night, reading...waking up at 6am the next morning to read. i feel as if today's 'gossip girl' and the 'twilight' series...it's all fucking trash. i mean, when we were young, sure there was pretty goofy stuff....the 'baby sitters club' and also 'goosebumps...' or 'the boxcar children' (pretty awesome actually)...but where is the 2009 version of 'the giver?' do you guys remember 'the giver?' everyone was living in a sterile futuristic society, and the one man, the giver, he was a keeper of memories about life on earth in the days past...he held sessions with that one boy (or girl?) and made him/her remember things about life before...before things got so sterile and fucked up...things we dare not forget......such as what it felt like to be on a sailboat.

ahhh i hope today's kids have something poignant to read. maybe they read the same stuff we did. maybe 'a wrinkle in time' is to today's young children what the now-vintage 'nancy drew' and 'hardy boys' series was to us--stuff our parents read when they were young and then passed down to us.

1 comment:

  1. I also hope that kids are reading the same stuff we did - like "the giving tree" and "frog and toad are friends" by Arnold Lobel, these are my favorites,and I believe those have to be passed to the next generations. I, as an inhome tutor for kids, try to introduce good books as much as I can... If there's anything you'd recommend, I'd be happy to know more and more of good children books. Ai

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