The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

by Gretchen Rubin

But my passionate interest in kidlit didn’t fit with my ideas of what I wished I were like; it wasn’t grown up enough. I wanted to be interested in serious literature, constitutional law, the economy, art, and other adult subjects. And I am interested in those topics, but I somehow felt embarrassed by my love of J. R. R. Tolkien, E. L. Konigsberg, and Elizabeth Enright. I repressed this side of my personality to such a degree that when one of the Harry Potter books came out, I didn’t buy it for several days. I’d fooled even myself into thinking that I didn’t care.

My passion for children's and young-adult literature continues as strong as ever. How I love this literature! I love rereading my old favorites, and also reading the excellent books that are being written today. Many readers email to ask me for reading suggestions, so I made a list of my 81 favorite works of children's and young-adult literature. You can request it or download it from gretchenrubin.com. Now, why 81? I planned to make a more conventional list of 100, but I found that I had 81 true, true, true favorites. After 81, I had many books that I loved, but not at that extreme level. So I decided to end the list at 81. It has been thrilling for me to realize that so many adults love kidlit as much as I do. I think this interest is much more widely acknowledged than it was when I was doing my happiness project.