Welcome to Rachel Gutman, a rising junior at Brown University who is interning with Scholastic this summer, working on our website for teachers! She's really into language (she's double concentrating in linguistics and comparative literature with a Spanish-English translation track...wow!) AND really into books. Here are the five books that have most infuenced her life.
Thanks, Rachel!
At a lunch lecture, the Scholastic summer interns were introduced to a poem by Sojourner Ahebee that’s featured in Scholastic’s Open a World of Possible campaign. In the poem, Sojourner writes, “I am standing on all the stories I’ve ever read.” These are a few of the stories I stand on; the worlds that helped me face my world.
Curious George Goes Camping by Margaret and H.A. Rey: My parents say that Curious George Goes Camping was the first book they knew I read independently. I was about four years old, so I don’t really remember the day, but I’m sure that the transition from hearing words to actually putting them together myself completely changed my relationship with language. (Spoiler: I’m obsessed with language.) Curious George Goes Camping is all about independence: George goes off into an unfamiliar world on his own, has a bit of trouble with things he doesn’t understand, but learns from his mistakes and manages to save the day. And that’s exactly what I began to do with independent reading.
Matilda by Roald Dahl: Matilda Wormwood might be the first strong female character I fell head-over-heels in love with. She’s certainly responsible for my continued love affair with smart, determined women and tongue-in-cheek magical realism. Even though I knew telekinesis was impossible (perhaps from trial and error), Matilda’s adventures showed me what is possible. Her story is about focusing on what needs changing in the world, then using wit, creativity, and energy to change it. The best part of that, and the one that resonated most with me, is that you don’t need supernatural powers to be powerful.
The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo: My third-grade teacher read Kate DiCamillo’s The Tiger Rising aloud to the class, and I remember being frustrated by the imperfect happy ending; there had to be a reason that good didn’t tidily do away with evil, something else about the book that I wasn’t quite seeing. The Tale of Desperaux, on the other hand, was somehow more comfortable. The dialogue between narrator and reader felt nurturing, and the more fantastical elements of the story helped frame the complex relationships between characters in a way I understood. It’s one of the few books I read multiple times as a kid, and a new desire to understand literature on a deep level began to compete with my voracious appetite for new stories.
The Report Card by Andrew Clements: Nora Rowley was another defining female role model for me. I entered the world of The Report Card as a bookish elementary school student who was smart because I got good grades. Nora quickly tore that structure down from around me, leaving me as just Rachel while pointing out all the ways I could continue to be special. Nora showed Philbrook Elementary and each of her readers that learning is about more than absorbing and reproducing information. She continues to inspire me to learn, not only from my professors, but from everyone I meet – and from myself.
The Plague by Albert Camus: Exit the world of elementary school and enter my leaving-for-college existential crisis. The Plague was part of my AP English Literature curriculum, an adult incarnation of the literature I began to appreciate with Kate DiCamillo. The language of the novel drew me farther into the story than I’d been since elementary school, and this feat fed the beginnings of my interest in translation. Beyond that, the power of the book to convey a philosophy that so resonated with me reinvigorated my quest to write effectively. Albert Camus gave me a new standard of what it means to send a message through writing, and I’ve been striving to come near it ever since.
Which five books most influenced your life?
