Reading is Traveling
Just back from the Washington Library Media Association conference where I gave a talk about middle grade books titled "Reading is Traveling." It was fun to put together. I talked about how the best books always go beyond the question "what happens next?" to the bigger and more interesting question "who am I?" We all know that the better the question, the better the answer—some books are more successful at engaging readers on these different levels than others.
Those books are well worth searching out. I covered 150 years of middle grade fiction in six exemplary books. The authors highlighted were Louisa May Alcott, E.B. White, Madeleine L'Engle, Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett and Sherman Alexie. We covered geographical travel, time travel, travel into space, travel into different identities and circumstances. Reading is travel writ very large indeed.
I also couldn't help mentioning my own coming-of-age novel DOT TO DOT, as this middle grade chapter book includes all kinds of travel—emotional, geographic and cultural, as well as a bit of timeslipping just to keep things lively.
I'm happy to give the talk elsewhere on request!
