Hello friends! I am the new librarian at Scholastic, where I catalog, manage the archive, facilitate the employee book club, and help my fellow librarian Karen Van Rossem to do research for our colleagues. You can read my bio here, but full disclosure – I love to read! Like many of you, ordering books from the Scholastic flyers is a significant part of my reading history, so I am overly excited to be part of this family – where I get to work with my bffs: Claudia, Dawn, Kristy, Stacey, Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Katniss.
This first task, producing my bookprint (the five books that most influenced my life), was intimidating – how do you narrow down to a list of five when there are hundreds of books that make up who you are? I relied on the process of elimination. I wrote down all of the titles that came to mind first, slept on it, and then crossed titles off this list this morning on the train until I was reduced to five. Here they are:
I Want To Go Home by Gordon Korman: To this day, this is the funniest book I have ever read. On this list, it represents itself and Korman’s whole Bruno & Boots series. My sister and I used to get in trouble at school for reading his books under the desk, because they make you laugh, hoot, giggle, and guffaw out loud! This book is particularly hilarious because Rudy Miller concocts the most ridiculous, preposterous, zany escape plans ever contemplated, and while he outwardly he claims to hate being at summer camp, he returns on his own after several of his successful escapes. He loves the thrill of the chase, and this book helped me to understand what that phrase means.
Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov: Everything comes back to the three laws of robotics, and this collection of short stories laid the foundation for my love of science fiction, comics, and the dystopian zombie/robot-pocalypse of our imminent future. In particular I like the ‘what if’ aspect of sci-fi, and each story in Robot Visions toys with the logic of the three laws in a different way. Often, while watching a television show or movie, I see something that references Asimov and the themes in this collection (and I, Robot) and I wonder at the impact he has had on the world.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: I read this book once in high school, twice in college, and I taught it to my tenth graders. For me it defines the idea of postcolonial literature, and every time I go through the book my appreciation for it grows and the story becomes more significant. Achebe has talked about using the English language to communicate the African experience, and lines like this are a case in point: “Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands, and so he ate with kings and elders.”
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta: This novel starts en medias res, in the middle of the action, and so we are hooked at the beginning by the heroine running through the streets of Lagos with “an unearthly kind of wildness in her eyes that betrayed a troubled spirit.” Like Okonkwo, Nnu Ego was born into the wrong age. She does everything a woman is ‘supposed’ to do – but the modern world keeps getting in the way of her success! My takeaway from this story (and Achebe’s) is that you have to be flexible in life, ready to adapt to change.
It by Stephen King: First of all, I had four King titles on my list before the elimination round, but this book… it is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read! Being the first 1000+ page book that I accomplished, it opened me up to long books (hello Clancy, hello Grisham), and when I finished it all I could think was – what is WRONG with him? And – how does Tabitha (King) sleep at night?? That being said, Stephen King is my favorite writer. The story takes over, and you lose control of your own free will – the experience of reading a “page turner”. I lost precious hours of sleep in high school, up until 4 in the morning finishing a book, and then cowering under the covers until the sun came up.
That’s me – LOL, robots, Nigerian fiction, page turners – and I live to read another day. If you want to see what is currently on my bookshelf, be my friend on Goodreads. Let me know – what are the books that make up who you are?
