To Kill a Mockingbird (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.” Robertson Davies
I love to reread books.
Some of my favorite childhood stories take on new meaning as I mature. I don’t know how many times I have read To Kill a Mockingbird – as a young girl, teenager, young woman, mother. I’ve related to all the characters at different times in my life. Scout in the confusion of a young girl, Boo in times of shame and isolation, Atticus in making hard decisions, Tom in experiencing injustice.
Each stage of life that I navigate and each challenge in my own life that I face allows me to understand this story and its characters in deeper ways. That’s the mark of a good book.
Do you have a good book in your life?
Betsy
It’s about time to re-read Watership Down.
Thanks Betsy.
I feel the same way about “The Great Divorce” by C. S. Lewis. I read it for the first time when I was 17 and regularly since then. After awhile it starts to become almost like a poem. You know exactly what’s going to happen next but you savor the words and the telling of the story. Every journey through the text works it more deeply into one’s life.
There are a few books that I love, and reread often. Most are written for adults, but the one I pick up the most is for children: Alice in Wonderland.
A book like To Kill a Mockingbird is like an old friend you see only occasionally. When you reconnect, there is the soothing sense of carrying on from that spot in time when you last met and a gentle flow that adds layers of spent time and new experience. That book has been my loyal and wise companion and never disappoints. Great quote, great thoughts in this post
Absolutely! One book I read every two years or so, hoping to collect the astonishing writing style by osmosis is: In Silence: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World, by Ruth Sidranski. It is the most beautiful book, outside of the Bible, that I have every read. I cry every time.
And I have not picked up her style, yet. I think it’s impossible.
Where the Red Fern Grows is a nostalgia buffet for me.
When the Legends Die, by Hal Borland, is an excellent book. It’s in the YA section at the library–but is certainly not a “juvenile” story. Not a long novel, but the writing is perfection, I think–and the character study is surely on a par with To Kill A Mockingbird, in my opinion. I don’t recall how many times I read it–it’s still good. God bless you, Sisters.
To Kill a Mockingbird is the one for me. There is so much packed into that book, as you note. I always get a chill and a tear when I read that simple sentence: “Hey, Boo,” I said.
I read To Kill a Mockingbird again last year. It was a totally different read for me. I re-read Alas Babylon again last year too. I hadn’t read it since 10th grade and I enjoyed it again. I also can always return to Pride and Prejudice, but I’ve read it too often to balance my perspectives against one another. Anne of Green Gables is one I would like to read as an adult. Thanks!
Tale of two cities – and East of Eden……….two of my favorites.
I reread the Chronicles of Narnia a couple years ago. I was amazed at the layers of meaning I had missed as a young adult when I last read it. Such a rich story!
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