What Lee Smith can teach us about summer reading for kids
Parents looking for summer reading suggestions for their children can get some help this vacation season from an unlikely source 鈥� Lee Smith, a novelist best known for her works of fiction for adults.
Though Smith doesn鈥檛 bill herself as an expert on juvenile reading, she has two stellar qualifications to talk about books for kids. Smith read broadly and avidly as a child, and she seems to remember just about every book that she devoured. Or so we learn in 鈥淒imestore: A Writer鈥檚 Life,鈥� Smith鈥檚 new memoir of her formative years in the small Virginia mountain town of Grundy in the 1950s.
Smith has written 17 celebrated works of fiction, including 鈥淔air and Tender Ladies,鈥� 鈥淥ral History鈥� and, most recently, 鈥淕uests on Earth.鈥� But as she reminds readers of 鈥淒imestore,鈥� 鈥淚 was a reader long before I was a writer. In fact, I started writing in the first place because I couldn鈥檛 stand for my favorite books to be over, so I started adding more and more chapters onto the ends of them, often including myself as a character.鈥澛犅�
Among Smith鈥檚 most cherished books were 鈥淗eidi,鈥� 鈥淎nne of Green Gables,鈥� 鈥淧ippi Longstocking,鈥� and 鈥淭he Secret Garden,鈥� 鈥渨hich I鈥檇 read maybe twenty times,鈥� she writes.
As a sickly child, Smith used to stay home a lot, which allowed her to feed her reading habit even more.
鈥淥ther books had affected me strongly,鈥� she adds. 鈥溾�楲ittle Women,鈥� especially the part where Beth dies, and 鈥楪one With the Wind,鈥� especially the part where Melanie dies.... I also loved 鈥楳arjorie Morningstar,鈥� 鈥楢 Tree Grows in Brooklyn,鈥� and books like 鈥楧ear and Glorious Physician,鈥� 鈥楾he Shoes of the Fisherman,鈥� 鈥楥hristy,鈥� and anything at all about horses and saints. I had read all the Black Stallion books, of course, as well as all the Marguerite Henry books.鈥�
Henry was a celebrated author of children鈥檚 books about horses, including 鈥淢isty鈥� and 鈥淪ea Star.鈥�
When the young Smith learned that Henry had once stayed at her grandmother鈥檚 boarding house, the idea that writers were real people encouraged her to think that she might become a writer, too.
In 鈥淒imestore,鈥� Smith has provided a pretty decent summer reading list to get youngsters through the next few weeks. Meanwhile, we grown-ups can read 鈥淒imestore,鈥� a charming memoir of a little girl who loved books so much that she grew up to write her own.
Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana and an essayist for Phi Kappa Phi Forum, is the author of 鈥淎 Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.鈥�
