The County Library discussion

I recently read an article about bookprints: how every individual is affected by what they have read. Like it or hate it each book leaves its mark. This got me thinking about my bookprint and I came up with 5 of the most impactful books I’ve read or had read to me as a child. They are: My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James, Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt, Beauty by Robin McKinley, and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

So, what are your 5 bookprint books—books that changed or influenced you?

The first book that someone (my grandmother) gave me that I could read for myself was . I was six.
The first hard bound book I ever bought for myself out of money I made from a job was . It was 1956 and it got me started down the road of non-conformity (and low wages). I re-read it periodically. and are also both books I read in my youth and continue to read (didn't really understand Melville until I was much older, though). explained my whole life up to the time I read it (still in touch with Arabella but hope never to see Sue again in my life) but it is so depressing that when I try to re-read it, I have to schedule a whole week because I can't even get out of bed.

Whistle for Willie is probably the first book I really remember. I wanted to learn how to whistle so badly, and I knew if I kept trying, it would eventually happen.

Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson was another book that changed my life. I read it over and over. It was the first time a character openly hated her sister and was jealous of her. I could relate. My sister and I are close now. But what I learned, like Louise, is that ultimately it is the life you make for yourself and not what other people think or/want for you that you have to be content with. Powerful.

Victor Hugo's Les Misérables has unquestionably left the largest "bookprint". I cannot see life in the same way evere again because of this book. I didn't have as dramatic a change as Jean Valjean, but it changed my life nonetheless. It is such an amazing story with the most brilliantly thought up characters. Even the minor characters seemed so real. I've read it (unabridged) twice, and each time was just as good and just as emotionally involved. Anyone who has not read it has not met literature. Oh, I could go on about this book for hours!