Making a List

Making a list of favorite books for Lilly who lives behind me and loves "adventure stories!" I'm reminded of how many books I loved as a child. My mother's narrative was that I couldn't read and she made me read aloud to the psychologist.  This was after my bio dad wrote a letter to us about getting married for the 3rd time. Now as an adult I realize SHE WAS TRAUMATIZED, not me! I kept on reading but I had to read in secret, in my bedroom with the door closed. If she caught me I'd have to dry the dishes or empty the dishwasher. She wanted me someplace where she could CONTROL ME. School was a refuge. When I liked a book she was angry and jealous that she didn't write it. She wasn't even a writer! Meanwhile my Step father  who also had to HIDE TO READ or get up at 5AM to read, was finding me an insomniac reader slipped me books he liked. SOUL ON ICE by ELDRIDGE CLEAVER.

Soul on Ice is a memoir and collection of essays by Eldridge Cleaver. Originally written in Folsom State Prison in 1965, and published three years later in 1968, it is Cleaver's best known writing and remains a seminal work in African-American literature.

Danny Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

James and the Giant Peach (all of Dahl)

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

The Witch of Blackbird Pond 

Sounder

The Cay

The Dream Watcher

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

The Phantom Tollbooth

Little House in the Big Woods 

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Shiloh

Old Yeller