Give Yourself a Summer Reading Challenge

by Jenny Hubbard Rowan Public Library

            You may have heard about Great American Reads, the PBS-sponsored challenge to pin down America’s favorite book, which will be announced in November of this year.  We of Book Bites, the reading club of Rowan Public Library, have chosen this opportunity to revisit, over the summer, three classic novels from our childhoods: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little House on the Prairie, and Little Women.

            All three of these semi-autobiographical stories feature spirited girls.  Our June book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, introduces us to 1912 tenement living and Francie Nolan, age 11, a poor Catholic girl with big dreams. Coming of age in the shadow of her alcoholic father and over-burdened mother, Francie clings to education as a way out of a vicious cycle, though she loves her neighborhood and her family with a fierce and abiding love.  Many of today’s fiction writers cite Betty Smith’s 1943 book as inspiration, and I for one am delighted that it found its way on the PBS list.

            For July, in the spirit of independence, we Book Biters wave our flag for a book that’s not on that list but should be:  Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  If you donned a calico bonnet for the bus ride to school and carried your lunch in a tin pail, your geeky enthusiasm will be validated as soon as you reread Little House. Nearly 100 years old now, Ingalls’s books for children stand up brilliantly to the test of time.  And if you can’t get enough of them, follow up with this adult companion piece, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the recent Pulitzer-Prize winner by Caroline Fraser. It’s riveting.     

In August, Book Bites moves from little houses to Little Women. I suppose we could slide into the dog days and watch the new and highly acclaimed PBS adaptation instead, but reading the actual words by Louisa May Alcott will afford us the opportunity to measure our skills as literary critics.  As a girl, I adored Jo March, Alcott’s alter ego, but I fear that I will now view the whole book as less than perfection. Will I be the only one who finds  it overly sentimental? Are Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy fully-rounded characters or stereotypes?  When the novel was published in 1869, was it a cry for women’s rights, or did it merely affirm the patriarchal order? 

I look forward to answering these questions with the other members of Book Bites. Come and return to your youth with us: we welcome you with open books and open arms. We will likely continue in the autumn to pull from Great American Reads, though rest assured we will not choose Shades of Grey, one of the 100 on list.  If it wins that big prize in November, my English-teacher heart will surely die a tiny death.

Book Bites, free and open to all, meets the last Tuesday of the month from 6-7 pm at Frank T. Tadlock South Rowan Regional, 920 Kimball Road, in China Grove. Call 704.216.7727 for more information.