Other People's Writing

I've read a few articles/blog posts recently that I keep thinking about, so I thought I'd share them here.

-I've been thinking a lot recently about why I read, how I select the books I read, and being more intentional in my book choices. I'll probably write a more in depth post about some of these thoughts at some point in the future, but a few things I've heard and read recently have been contributing to these reflections. This post, by Amy over at Sunlit Pages, is one I keep coming back to about why I read. I love the reasons she lists.

-When I was in high school, I loved my English classes, but didn't care much for one of my high school English teachers. One day near Christmas break, there was an event in my seminary class (Mormon religious education-- in Utah high school students can actually have one period of "released time" to walk across the street and go to seminary) that I was supposed to dress up for. I wore a black a dress, and to accessorize a little bit for the festive holiday season, I wore a read ribbon around my neck. To my horror, this particular English teacher assumed I had dressed up as Eustacia Vye, because we were taking the final on The Return of the Native that day in my English class. I was just so embarrassed that she thought I was actually nerdy enough to dress up as a character for the test. And maybe I was that nerdy, but I didn't want her to think so. Ever since then, I've been pretty wary about character costumes, accidental or otherwise. But the more and more I embrace my inner nerdiness, the more and more I'm reconsidering this stance. This awesome post, in honor of Book Lover's Day, certainly helped. Book nerdiness never looked so stylish.

- So, if I haven't made it clear, I'm definitely a Shakespeare fan. I don't pretend to be any sort of expert or even "hardcore," but I am on the bandwagon that considers him the finest English author of all time and I admire him accordingly. The man knew how to turn a phrase. So, call me excited to learn about any additions to the Shakespeare canon. Also fun to learn that Shakespeare had terrible handwriting. So nice to know that good writing doesn't need good handwriting.

-I taught seventh grade English in my former, pre-mom life. The Hunger Games was just becoming a huge thing, and our school acquired a reading circle set. I had read the book myself, and loved it, but I was pretty wary about putting it into the hands of thirteen-year-olds. Actually, I wasn't worried about giving it to my students, I knew they would love it. I was far more worried about the reaction from parents. Luckily, I didn't get any backlash, but if I had I would have wanted an article like this to refer them to. I have enough thoughts and opinions on the topic of "disturbing" content in YA fiction  that I could write a whole series of posts about it (probably will), but as far as this kind of violence in books is concerned, I agree with this author.