by Laura Ingalls Wilder; ill. by Helen Sewell (first editions) and Garth Williams

HarperCollins, orig. pub. 1932

I was trying to decide what to post today–something I’ve stockpiled? or a freshly written review? what age group or genre?–when I realized that I would be posting right before my birthday. And that immediately pulled my mind to memories of inspiring books I’ve been given, some for my birthday, some for other occasions (and some just because).

So instead of posting a review today, I decided to write about one of those gifts, the one that is probably most closely connected to my passion for stories, reading, and writing.

When I was about a year old, my mom took me to visit my great-grandmother in Texas. I was already in love with words by that point: I had talked early and was now babbling away in long, complete sentences. Mom says my favorite thing to do was talk. And so talk I did, keeping up a steady stream of questions, stories, and observations as I followed Great-Grandma from room to room in her tiny house.

I don’t remember Great-Grandma at all, but Mom often describes her as a heavy-hearted person. She had lived through two world wars as the sister and mother of soldiers, buried an infant daughter, and been left a widow with three children just as the Depression began. I’ve never seen a photo of her smiling.

My flood of words, however, made her laugh.

And so before we left Texas, she handed my mom a boxed set of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. “These are for Kathryn,” she said. “That girl is going to be a reader someday.”

When we got home, Mom set the books aside for a few years. I don’t remember exactly when she brought them out, but I do remember reading them with my dad when I was just six. Every night before bed, my younger sister and I would climb into his lap, and he would read us a chapter. We went through the entire series, and Dad says that I would sometimes read short passages aloud.

Later, I read the books on my own. In fact, by the time I reached junior high, I had read them so many times that I was afraid they would fall apart; I covered them in clear contact paper to hold them together. They had pride of place in my bookcase until just last year, when I took them to my parents’ house so all the grandchildren could enjoy them.

Obviously, I loved those books. I identified with Laura from the start. Like her, I sometimes got into trouble for expressing my mind (there was, for instance, the time I blew a raspberry and gave a thumbs-down to my first-grade teacher because I didn’t want to go to P.E.). I was stubborn and curious like Laura, bookish, and pretty uninterested in domesticity. Young as I was, something resonated in me when she refused to include obedience in her marriage vows. And the fact that these amazing books were written by a woman planted a seed in my mind: maybe I could be a writer, too, one day.

But I didn’t just love the Little House books for what was in them. I also loved them for what they represented in my life.

In handing my mom those books, my great-grandmother performed a very important act of validation. She left me with a constant reminder that she had loved me because, not in spite, of my thirst for stories. That my intelligence had made her proud. It was a good reminder to have, especially on the many days when I felt like a misfit because I liked to learn and read. That thick blue box said to me, “It’s not just OK to be yourself–it’s good.”

So the next time you’re trying to decide what to give a young girl for her birthday or some other occasion (or just because), give her a book. Not just any book–a good one. Because you never know where it will lead her.

by Gloria Houston; ill. by Susan Condie Lamb

HarperCollins, 2011

32 pages

I love books about books. Or, perhaps more accurately, I love books about people who love books.

Partly, I’m just a book geek. Books have been my prime object of fascination since I was a preschooler. It’s not just about the reading–it’s about the experience of holding a book and turning the pages, the craft of book design and bookmaking, the process writers and illustrators go through to create their books.

I’m also always on the lookout for fellow bibliophiles. I like to discuss plot lines and themes and story conflicts the way sports fans discuss spectacular Super Bowl or World Series plays. My upper-division college lit classes were my personal idea of utopia. But bibliophiles, always a rare species, seem to be getting even rarer, so I appreciate the fictional ones almost as much as I do the real thing.

I also love books about readers because they help to validate reading as a worthwhile pursuit. When I was a kid, often picked on for being a “bookworm,” books about readers helped me feel less alone. They reinforced my reading instinct, showed me that I wasn’t crazy to find reading fun or rewarding.

Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile, based on the real-life story of librarian Dorothy Thomas, is the perfect book for a lonely bookworm–or any other girl who loves books and reading.

The title character, Dorothy Thomas, is a book lover of the highest order. From childhood, she dreams of being a librarian. She earns the requisite degrees, but then finds herself living in a rural North Carolina town with no library. What’s a smart, ambitious bibliogirl to do?

Enter Miss Dorothy’s book-loving neighbors. Over her objections–she insists that a library must be a brick-and-mortar building–they raise money for a bookmobile and appoint her to run it. For years, she drives the bookmobile around the Blue Ridge Mountains where she lives.

Then, finally, an appreciative reader donates a small house to serve as a permanent library. The townspeople renovate it and donate books to fill it, and Miss Dorothy settles in. She wins awards; reporters come to interview her; and readers who have grown up and moved away send back letters expressing their love for her and the books she shared with them.

I love this book for many reasons. There’s Miss Dorothy’s trailblazing spirit–the vast majority of women of her generation didn’t even attend college, let alone earn graduate degrees–and her toughness (she drives her bookmobile through blizzards and floods). There are Gloria Houston’s spare, lyrical text and Susan Condie Lamb’s gentle but lively watercolors. Houston beautifully captures the everyday drama and humor of Miss Dorothy’s life; Lamb offers a window on Miss Dorothy’s ebullient personality and the townspeople’s helpful and exuberant spirits.

But the greatest inspiration in this picture book is in yet another place. I’ve written before about the importance of teaching girls how to triumph through failure. Miss Dorothy’s story teaches a related lesson: how to bloom where you’re planted.

The reality is that our girls’ lives won’t necessarily turn out the way they expect. Marriage, children, illness, tragedy, an inspiring encounter, recognition of a need–these are just some of the reasons our girls may end up in unexpected places or among unexpected people.

And what does a strong, creative girl or woman do in those circumstances? She does a Miss Dorothy. She’s honest with herself about any sadness or loss, but then she seizes the opportunity to fulfill her dream in a new way–or even finds an entirely new dream.

In other words, she lives life as it really is: ever-changing, sometimes full of twists of turns, but always with the potential for fulfillment if you know where to look. And, as Miss Dorothy’s story shows, in doing so she’s likely to inspire the next generation to do the same.

by Thanhha Lai

HarperCollins, 2011

272 pages

The Vietnam War is kind of a nebulous area in my historical understanding. I know something about it–but only from an American perspective (how and why the U.S. got involved, our casualties, protests on the homefront). I know virtually nothing about the war from the perspective of the Vietnamese men, women, and children whose homeland was torn apart.

I had that ignorance in mind when I picked up Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out and Back Again, an autobiographical novel-in-verse based on the author’s experiences as a war refugee. I was also interested in what I had heard was the main focus of the book: Lai’s experience adjusting to life in the U.S., specifically Alabama (I’ve written before about the culture shock I experienced when my family moved from Southern California to the South).

Lai changes some details of her story for the novel–for instance, Lai had eight siblings, whereas main character Ha has only three–but the essentials are the same. Ha, a 10-year-old girl whose father has gone missing in the war, flees South Vietnam with her mother and brothers when her home city of Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese army. After a harrowing few weeks on a defecting Vietnamese Navy ship, Ha’s family ends up in a Miami refugee camp. There, the only immigration sponsor who will take them all is an Alabama man Ha calls “Cowboy.”

But the family finds that their trip to Alabama is only the beginning of their struggle to find a home. Their new neighbors, including Cowboy’s wife, are mostly hateful and afraid: people egg their house, and Ha’s new classmates shout racial slurs and threaten violence. With the help of Cowboy and a couple of other friends, however, Ha and her family slowly win over their neighbors and begin to build a satisfying new life for themselves.

Since Ha is the main character, her personal acclimation is at center stage. After Cowboy connects her with an open-minded neighbor and asks her teacher to counter the bullying, Ha discovers that not all her Southern neighbors want her to go away. Those little rays of light, combined with Cowboy’s ongoing kindness and her mother’s monumental strength, give Ha the courage she needs to make a place for herself in her new country.

There’s a reason Lai won both the National Book Award and a Newbery Honor for Inside Out and Back Again. This is an incredible story, incredibly told. Lai’s poems are mostly short, always spare, but packed to the hilt with emotion.

So many authors who write about war fall into the trap of trying to create an epic. They lean on the imposing drama of big, sweeping vistas and the agony of thousands. But Lai zeroes in on the details: Ha tapping her toe to the floor at midnight to foil a boys-only New Year tradition, her frustration at being unable to solve an American math problem, the family’s first Christmas dinner.

The result is a reality and immediacy that brings home the weight of Ha’s transition from Vietnam to the U.S., the significance of what she accomplishes over the course of the book. On the surface, it’s not a lot: basically, she makes a couple of friends and learns enough English to get by in school. But the intimacy of Lai’s poems reveals the mammoth struggle behind these simple steps.

That’s what’s inspiring about Inside Out and Back Again: the fact that Ha, at just 10 years old, takes on a fight most adults would shrink from. Thrown into a disorienting situation through no choice of her own, she doesn’t just go down fighting–she refuses to go down, period. She gets her bearings, realizes she can still be her confident, somewhat defiant self, and deliberately chooses to survive.

When I got to the end of the book, I wanted a sequel. I wanted to know how this true-grit girl would handle the rest of what life had to offer her. And, for me, that’s the telltale sign of an inspiring story: one I don’t want to end.