I remember owning a copy when I was maybe 11 or so and looking at the cover. My mother said it was a great book, but I never got past the first paragraph. I was into Nancy Drew then, the Yearling didn’t interest me then. I’ve been wondering if I’ve been missing something and if I should try this one with my 10 year old.
That’s something I really struggled with at school — reading books that held no interest for me. I kind of feel mean expecting my son to read books that do not really appeal to him. I remember a teacher once telling us that children are much more apt to put a book down if it doesn’t catch their interest in the first few pages. Adult are more apt to struggle through and hope it gets better. While perserverence is important, I always felt that a lot of the books we were made to read in school were a waste of time. I could have been reading something else that held much more interest for me. (I’ve always been an avid reader and have read a lot of the classics on my own.) To be honest, most of the books we had to read for class were so boring to me that I didn’t even finish reading most of them. The only ones I can say I actually finished were Watership Down in grade 8, The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart in grade 9 (which started my love of all things Arthurian — I read all the books in that series afterward and have at least three full shelves of Arthurian themed novels, and non-fiction), and the 4 Shakespeare plays we did in grades 9-12. That’s it, that’s all. In about 8 years of doing novel studies — at least 4 books a year — I finshed 6. (Don’t ask me how my English marks were generally very good — it was always my best subject.)
Sorry — I really didn’t mean to get off topic like that.
