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Based on a true story. In the fifth grade I moved to a new city and started in a new school. On a trip to the school library (I'm dating myself here - they weren't called Media Centers then) when I discovered they had run out of Alfred Hitchcock, the school librarian suggested a book of realistic fiction to me. I read the story with increasing distaste. The main character was as described above and the whole time I was reading all I could think of was why the librarian thought I would enjoy this book. In my mind, it was because that is how she saw me. My middle-class sensibilities were violated. How could anyone think I was the daughter of the equivalent of a janitor?! My father was in middle-management! He went to college. He played golf. My mother was very eloquent on proper etiquette. She judged flower arranging and painted. Oh, I had friends on various socio-economic levels, and that didn't bother me, but don't go mislabeling me.
The next time we went to the school library, I cagily avoided the librarian. However, an alert teacher caught me and recommended James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl to me. I didn't have high hopes for it, but on the face of it, it didn't seem to be about any little girls who had no friends and lived in less than fortunate circumstances. After two pages, I was hooked. Today, as someone who has to recommend books to children, I am more careful. I try to find out what sort of books they enjoy and I don't put a book in their hands. I show it to them,put it back, and let them make the decision to take it the rest of the way off the shelf and see if they want to read it.
To this day I despise realistic fiction. I can't imagine why anyone would want to read it. And I have a librarian to blame.
