To All the Books That Shaped (And Showed) Me...

This week’s Teaching Author blog topic, sparked by Scholastic’s “You Are What You Read” website, seemed easy enough: list the 5 books that show the world who I am.

Creating that list, though, called for hard choices.

I toured my apartment’s book-inviting flat surfaces – i.e. bookshelves, tables, stools and window sills, lovingly fingering spines and book covers.

I paged through years’ worth of Reader’s Journals.

I culled my memory recalling titles and authors.

Not until my eyes fell upon my Art Deco-book-ended collection of childhood favorites did I see what I’d been looking for.

Hans Christian Andersen’s The UglyDuckling.

(Oh, how I loved Happy Endings!)

My Orange True Book, Betsy Ross, Girl of Old Philadelphia.

(Oh, how I yearned to know how others found theirs.)

Carolyn Keene’s The Secret of the Old Clock.

(There’s nothing more satisfying than solving a mystery!)

When I first began reading, long ago, I sought to learn how to realize my Happy Ending.

Today, I read (minus the blue roadster) seeking the same.

Contemporary fiction.

Historical fiction.

Folk tales.

Fantasy.                                                                 
                                    Poetry.
                                    How-to books.
                                    Biographies.
                                    Memoirs.
                                    Children's.
                                    Adult.
                                    I'm not picky.

I realize: perhaps my five-title list of the books that shaped me - including the three childhood favorites pictured above, does show the world who I am.

What’s truly important, though, at least to me: the books I read, the books I read now, showed and show me who I am and might become.  Each helped me figure out how I could write my Happy Ending.

The book I’m enthusiastically recommending to all I meet is Heather Seller’s memoir, You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know (Riverhead, October, 2010).

The author’s story, exquisitely written, is memorable, original, literally and figuratively eye-opening.

In Heather Sellers' own words:
"This the story of how I uncovered my past, which had long been obscured by my family’s extreme circumstamces and by face blindness, a neurological disorder that prevents me from recognizing people by face. Along the way, I discovered a deeper truth: that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt."

Like the children’s books that made me a reader, that made me a writer, Seller’s memoir offers Hope ...and the possibility of Happy Endings.

Esther Hershenhorn