Book Worms

Dd just came out and asked if I can set a book for her to wrwite a book report on.  (It’s school holidays, they go back on Tuesday, and they never get homework in the first week….well her class doesn’t. Ds’s does!)

I have two books that sprang immediately to mind.

The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery and

Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park.

Both books have always been special to me. In highschool, I went to boarding school. Our final year was a tumultuous one. We were a very wild bunch of girls and we got into a lot of trouble. Seven girls were expelled, 14 suspended and myself and my best friend got grounded. (Because we told the truth.  Those that lied were suspended and those that went that little bit further than the rest of us were expelled)  We’ve been known as the naughty year ever since.

One of the girls from our year, died the a couple of months after graduation. In a car accident. She had been out picking flowers. Big bright yellow sunflowers, the road was one that went from dirt to bitumen and as she was driving where the two seperate surfaces met formed a kind of lip, her ute flipped and as she was not wearing her seatbelt she was thrown out the sunroof and died.  She hadn’t been speeding. She hadn’t been drinking.  We were wild girls but we weren’t stupid.

At her funeral, they handed us flyers. And on them was a picture of her infectious smile and these words,

“In one star I am living. In one star I am laughing. So when you look up at the stars at night, only you will have stars that can laugh. And when time comforts you, (for time soothes all sorrows) You will be content to have known me. You will always be my friend. “

That is a passage from The Little Prince. Everytime I read my copy of the book, I hear my Grandmother’s voice reading it to me and the laughter of a friend who was called home too soon.

Playing Beatie Bow feed my desire for historical fiction. It’s set in The Rocks, a part of Sydney. 1873 when it was still known as the Colony of New South Wales.  I literally read that book to death. I wanted to name my daughter Abigail. Because of the book I think. (Dh wouldn’t hear of it) I have actually read this book so much I have read through three copies and this third copy is ready to completely fall apart also!

I love books. Every book I own has a special place in my heart. It warms one right through to know I have passed this very thing on to not just one but all three of my children. I often know how they are feeling by what book they have in their hand or by which book they bring to me to read.

I am no closer to deciding which one, so I think I’ll let her decide. What’s your favourite novel?