Kid Lit

Whenever the subject comes up of how my life has changed most since becoming a parent, or I am asked what I miss most about my pre-children life, the answer is simple: reading. 

I still read, probably  more than most people, but I used to read pretty much all of the time. I read on the subway, while eating meals, in the bathtub, while stalled in traffic, in line at the bank, in bed at night--there was never a time when I didn't have several books going simultaneously, and I both kept up with new authors and books and tried actively to fill in holes when it came to the classics. Now, I read for work, I read to and with my children, I read for pleasure when I can, in snatches, but I almost never have the luxury of long stretches of time when I can just lay around and lose myself in a book, or two, or four. I miss it sorely.

Which is one of the reasons why, when a friend asked me if I would be willing to co-found a children's literature book group with her inspired by a group she was already in that had become too large, I jumped at the invitation. I have always loved reading children's literature--which really means books targeted to older children and adolescents, not picture or new-reader books--and the thought of having a legitimate reason to devote more time to reading seemed immensely appealing.

It is hard to describe the pleasure I have found in this group, in my rediscovery of books I have loved for thirty years or more, and the license I have given myself, finally, to consider this genre worth serious consideration as a part of my work, something I truly love and a serious intellectual undertaking. Because I have been so thoroughly immersed in the books we have decided to read for our discussions--The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and The Westing Game, for the next gathering--I have been reading other "kid lit" books that would not otherwise have been on my radar, such as The Willoughbys and Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and filling in holes again for the first time in a long time, with books such as the Meet the Austins series, which I somehow managed to miss the first time around, when I was actually a child.

It's funny; people tend to assume that this group, when I mention or describe it, has something to do with my current status as parent, that I am reading as research, or vetting books for my girls, or trying to find books I can read to them as they grow, but one of the many wonderful aspects of this group is that it actually has nothing to do with parenting or children at all, and although some of the members have kids, others do not, and none of us are reading the books we love to read from this genre because of our roles as parents. 

It is refreshing, and more than that, actually, to be a part of something that exists purely due to shared passion and rigorous debate with admirable peers, something that speaks to a part of me I feel connected to sometimes these days by merely a thread--which is partly my own fault, I fully acknowledge--but still. It exists, and I am grateful for it.