8/29/2005

You may find this 20-something in an unlikely section of your local bookstore

Growing up, my mother always made me check out one non-fiction read per library trip. Which roughly translated into one non-fiction book per 15 fiction books. She wanted me to "learn something." I don't regret that, but it took me years to convince her that fiction taught me more about human nature than anything else could have.

I don't read novels nearly as much as I did when I was younger, but I still love children and young adult fiction. I've been especially into the young adult fiction recently, maybe because I remember being a teenager and the delicious first taste of independent thought and self discovery.

I'm not sure what I like better... a novel that makes me say, "How did she get into my head and my life?" or one that makes me say, "Oooooh...so that's what it's like to be someone like that..." I just read one that fits the latter description.... Sarah Dessen's Dreamland (young adult). Trying to summarize it in this short blog post would trivialize the delicate complexity of the subject matter, so I won't. Sometimes you read something that means more because of things in your life at the moment. Maybe that's why I haven't been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished it last weekend.

Everyone should read teen fiction.

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