I found reading Alan Bennett striking because you have this sudden flash of recognition when you read about a boy who has intellectual interests utterly different from his parents.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
I think it's so important for young readers to find a book or series that ignites their passion for reading, especially boys, whose interest in reading wanes as they grow older.
I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child.
I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.
I got my first whiff of what big-time adult literature was all about when I was in 8th grade. I got it from Mark Linn-Baker. You know - the guy from 'Perfect Strangers.'
I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read.
My father loved biographies. He loved the true tales of interesting people that were shaping our culture. I get why he dug 'Vanity Fair.' You feel smarter, somehow, for reading it.
My father was an engineer - he wasn't literary, not a writer or a journalist, but he was one of the world's great readers. Every two weeks, he'd take me to our local branch library and pull books off the shelf for me, stacking them up in my arms - 'Have you read this? And this? And this?'
My parents were very well read. They were both New Englanders, not highly educated, but they had a sophisticated... they were both very humanistic, and they were sophisticated readers.
I remember vividly what it's like to read as a 10-year-old - that passionate inhabiting of a book.
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