Rereading Books

This week’s topic is about books, which is great, because I’m writing this in the wee hours of the morning and books are one subject I can write about in my sleep. Honestly, I even dream about books—my own and other people’s.

When I was thinking about what to write, I wondered if I should write about how books have impacted my life. For instance, my thoughts on education and child-rearing were formed by the Louisa May Alcott book, The Eight Cousins, much to my children’s delight and my husband’s consternation.




In it, the heroine Rose is too delicate (a word used in that era for physically weak,) to attend school. She was recently orphaned and her kindly, seafaring uncle comes home to care for her. He has all sorts of ideas on how to raise children and since he hasn’t ever had any, he’s free to give reign to his unorthodox philosophies. These included a dream bedroom filled with treasures from all over the world, oatmeal every morning, cold baths and homeschooling, using lots of fun and exciting activities to teach her school lessons. I think the book was my first introduction to unit studies, which I used extensively in my own homeschooling, some fifteen years after I first read the book. Now that’s impact! Of course, I must have read the book a dozen times, until it became a part of who I am.

Which brings me to rereading books. I love rereading books. It’s kind of like visiting old friends. There is something so comfortable in curling up with a book that you have already read and loved. You know exactly what kind of experience you are going to get, though I get something new every time. One of the cool things about homeschooling my kids was the ability to assign them books I had already read and loved as a child and seeing their reaction. Some of my favorite rereads are The Outsiders, To Kill a Mocking Bird and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. When I read that book to my young children, I realized just how adult it actually was!

Then I started wondering which new books I’ve read recently will become favorite rereaders and I came across several, Jennifer Bradbury’s, Shift, ( I was lucky enough to get my hands on an arc. It’s available in May)



Wendy Toliver’s The Secret Life of a Teenage Siren,




Lisa Schroeder’s, I Heart You, You Haunt Me




and Alyson Noel’s, Saving Zoe.




Do you reread books? Why or why not?

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