Even though I'm now 41, three books I read in the fourth grade, when I moved up to big kids' books, still haunt my spirit with tangible pain.
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. My beloved fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Huffman, read this book to us in installments after lunch every day for about three weeks. Pure magic. We filed back from lunch wordlessly, tingling in anticipation, nudging and grinning at each other, hoping no traitor would act up and blow it for us (because you always had to worry about Jody and some of the guys tussling in the hall...). Like poster children for some utopian regime, we'd put our heads down on our arms at our desks and close our eyes, being swept away into the world of adventures against wild boars and wolves, where we were proud of being the strong, capable man of the house, and how we were all unmanned by having to shoot our own dog as our last act of kindess and protection as we truly became a man. Oh, how awful! How utterly heartbreaking! The cruel, cruel, terrible unfairness. We all stayed in from recess that day, crying our eyes out.
Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten. Every one knows Bambi from Disney, but you really must read the book (translated from German) for its rich world-building and great characterizations. It was my very first novel. My mom took my hand and led me over to the Tall Shelves. At that time, the Harrodsburg Library occupied the old sherrif's office and jail in the historic brick row houses. The dark, wide-planked floors creaked as we walked around; sun beamed through windows like solid shafts in the shadowed dimness; dust motes danced. "I think you might like this," my mom said, pulling out a Real Book with an expert finger (she later became a children's librarian). She put her head to one side as she said this, very consideringly. I felt a little awed that this much weighty reflection went into the Choosing. I remember being worried and dubious -- there wasn't a picture on the front cover! It looked like it might be a hard book and a lot of work. I doubted I was up to it. At home, I was immediately lost in the world of Bambi and the Stag and Faline. I'll never forget the story about one buck, Rono, who was taken away by Man when he was a fawn. He returned as a buck, fat and sleek, placid about dangers. When Man returned to the forest, the animals fled, but Rono, proudly wearing his collar, walked toward Him fearelessly...and, of course, was blown away. Oh, the terrible, cruel unfairness.
The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Again, I was lucky enough to know this work as literature before I knew the Disney version. Come to think of it, I think I could put just about ANYTHING by Andersen here: The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Christmas Tree, The Little Match Girl. *sob* My dear mother checked out a big, fat collection of these when I was stuck in bed for a week with a particularly nasty strep throat. The world will never know if I really was conjested all that while or just crying my eyes out. Ah, the loving mermaid, sacrificing herself as her final act of love! Oh, oh, the terrible, painful heartbreak.
These authors taught me about terrible beauty, about tragedy as an artistic genre. Indeed, the only way to endure these painful stories was to learn to pull back just a little, just enough to see the stories as patterns, far enough to understand that irony lends a pleasing aesthetic rightness to a story's structure and arc -- even while our hearts bleed rawly at the level of the characters.
Mrs. Huffman, my mom, a dog, a fawn, and a tin soldier gave me literature: the most intense and all-encompassing love outside my humans. LITERATURE!!
What else is so powerful and mind-altering?