Skip to main content

The Bridge Book

I have been looking for the perfect book to bridge J's journey from childhood to adolescence. The books I read when I was about her age were the ones I first tried to get her interested in. It turns out they don't quite resonate with her. The generation gap has become a gigantic gulf since we started living our lives in internet years - our age adjusted world views are so far apart that I could be  a character from her history text book.
Then this summer, I got her A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library. She approached it tentatively  (as she usually does when I suggest that she read something) but after about twenty pages, she was completely hooked. She can now be found at all places at all times reading the book. If J is not to be seen or heard for some time, she is reading the book. This is exactly what I had looked for in the book that will help her make the physical and emotional transition she is making. She goes into middle school this fall - yet another of many changes she will experience in the next few years. 
Next on my list are The Lord of the Flies, Sense and Sensibility,The Time Machine and The Good Earth. It will be interesting to see which of these books will have her mesmerized like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has. To me, all of these books satisfy Italo Calvino's definition of a classic and if so, they should transcend time and cultural differences. And I can't wait for her to be ready to read one of my favorite books of all time A Prayer for Owen Meany. And in time Possession by A.S Byatt - but I am getting way ahead of myself.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

sandhya said…
To Kill a Mockingbird? Anne Frank-the diary of a young girl?

I have a daughter in middle school now, and I'm debating if I should give her these yet. She has already read Are you there, God? It's Margaret. The Good Earth and Lord of the Flies were books I enjoyed as well in my early adolescence, as was Rebecca.
11:06 PM
Heartcrossings said…
sandhya - both of those books are on my list and she loved all the Judy Blume books she's read :)

Thanks for reminding me of Rebecca - need to add that to the list
10:35 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...
25 comments
Read more