Bookish Bio: Bibliography as Biography
My imagination and love of words was shaped by many
influences, but especially by books. These
are the stories that I most loved and memorized. Each one is part of who I am
as a writer. In cases where I adored multiple books by the same author, I have generally
listed only one.
The Read-Aloud Stage
*****
*****
Richard Scarry’s
Going Places by Richard Scarry
Pig Will and Pig Won't by Richard Scarry
Pig Will and Pig Won't by Richard Scarry
How Droofus the
Dragon Lost His Head by Bill Peet
The Tale of Jemima
Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter
The Lord of the Rushie
River by Cicely Mary Barker
The Story of Babar
by Jean De Brunhoff
The Story about
Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese
Mother Goose by Gyo Fujikawa
Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel
 |
| Here's what I looked like at that time. |
The Elementary-School Stage
*****
*****
Patty Reed’s Doll
by Rachel K. Laurgaard
The Little House
books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Indian Captive: The
Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski
The Moccasin Trail
by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Little Britches
series by Ralph O. Moody
Under the Lilacs
by Louisa May Alcott
Heidi by Johanna
Spyri
Treasures of the
Snow by Patricia St. John
The Narnia
Series by C. S. Lewis
The Red Fairy Book
and others by Andrew Lang
The Hobbit by
J. R. R. Tolkien
 |
| Inspired by Indian Captive, I slung my "papoose" off my forehead until a cradleboard could be found. |
The High-School Stage
*****
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Bronte
Emma by Jane Austen
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis Mcgraw
The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff
Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff (Iliad and Odyssey retelling)
Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope
 |
| Here is my approximately-fourteen-year-old self, captured in a non-reading moment. |
*****
I am going to read all of these, and then I will really get to know you! What a clever biography!
ReplyDeleteYou should read them all-- they're good books! :-)
DeleteVery helpful! Will use with my daughters.
ReplyDeleteI suggested your blog to a life-long friend, and she immediately said "can't go wrong with someone who's read the Perilous Gard." I wish Elizabeth Pope had written more. The Sherwood Ring is also wonderful. I think I will reread both this summer, along with my annual return to Dandelion Wine.
ReplyDeleteThat's so funny! I do like The Sherwood Ring (the scene in which the historical heroine drugs the historical hero is vivid in my memory), although the modern day characters in that one just don't measure up to the period ones, do they?
Delete