The Gift of a Love of Books: Revisiting Gone-Away
June 13, 2020
In these conflict-ridden times, a love of books is a gift. If you have a book that you love, no matter what happens in your regular life, you can always go back to visit. You just have to open up the book. Here are a few places I continue to visit every so often:
- Gone-Away Lake (and Villa Caprice)
- The Four-Story Mistake
- Pemberley
- Dunnian (and the town of Ryddleton)
- Hogwarts
- The Velvet Room
- Green Sky
I own most of these books in multiple formats. Just in case.
There are other places I haven't visited in a while, but I still like knowing they're there:
- Kirrin Island
- The Secret Garden
- Sara Crewe's attic room, post-transformation
- The Little House in the Big Woods
- Maida's little house, shop, and village
This week I visited Gone-Away Lake, sitting outside in stolen summer moments to re-read both books. I'm happy to report that Gone-Away is still there, still the same, and still wonderful. I took my time with both books, because reading them made me so happy. Even though I knew word for word how the second book would end, I still cried a little bit. In a good way.
My daughter asked me how many times I had read the books, and I couldn't even tell her. Many, many times, over the past 40 years or so. I tried to read Gone-Away Lake aloud to her, but it wasn't to her taste. That's fine. She's been re-reading several Wish books by Suzanne Nelson and the two Candymakers books by Wendy Mass. Perhaps 40 years from now she'll pull them out and jump back into her own childhood.
This is a perhaps unappreciated benefit of growing bookworms. If you raise your child to love books, some day long into the future, he or she will have beloved places to visit, too. The love of books is truly a gift that lasts a lifetime. I'm more grateful than I can say to the people who nurtured that gift in me.
© 2020 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage. Links to be books may be affiliate links, for which I receive a small commission.