Read It Again

I read a post recently over at YA Highway by Kaitlin Ward on the topic of rereading and it definitely caught my interest straight from the title. To be honest, when I was younger I reread all the time, because it wasn't as easy to get a new book anyway and I loved the books I already had.

Then I realized that I could tell my life in stages as to which books I loved- starting with

Peter Rabbit and Mother Goose and Frog and Toad and How Spider Saved Christmas and How Spider Saved Halloween and The Teacher From The Black Lagoon (my kindergarten teacher had to pry those headphones away from me with that one,) and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs and Freckle Juice and The Chocolate Touch and A Begonia For Miss. Applebaum and Are You There God It's Me Margaret and Amelia Bedelia and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Goosebumps, and Little Women and Fear Street and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (the art in that book is beautifully terrifying- see pic,) and the Wayside School series, and few Stephen Kings (Carrie, Pet Semetary, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon were my faves and the only ones I could stay with for the whole thing.) And of course, some life changing Harry Potter.

Also, um....I may or may not confess to have also been in love with The Baby Sitter's Little Sister series somewhere in there. (KAREN BREWER FTW.)

Then I got to high school and could drive to Barnes and Noble. Between the store and my school's library, I got a kind-of-wide-but-not-really variety that also constituted heavy rereading. There was Speak, and Crooked, and more life changing Harry Potter, Fierce People, the Jessica Darling series, and Running With Scissors, and The Lovely Bones, and Memoirs of a Geisha, and Hairstyles Of The Damned and How The Light Gets In and The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Virgin Suicides (do not even get me started on rereading that one. I USED A FREAKING HIGHLIGHTER.)

Anyways, the point of all this reminiscing was that lately I had forgotten just how essential rereading is for the both the book lover and the author in me. I had only really reread Ballads of Suburbia. Since I was really new to the whole "YA" thing, I just tried to read a huge variety to drink it all in and observe and enjoy myself. Then I reread Beautiful by Amy Reed and it's like a light bulb went off. (The pages of that book are starting to get worn, seriously yo.)

I love that book so much now, way way more than I did when I first read it, even though I liked it then and read it in two sittings. It's a super-haunting-super-beautiful type of book, true to its name.

So the moral of the story is, for me anyways, rereading is just as important if not a bit more so than reading a bunch of new books right in a row.

Okay, it's time to go get ready for holiday baking day with my aunt. We are making caramel corn, peppermint bark, and sugar cookies. Mmmmmmmmm.

What about you guys, though? What are your favorite childhood/high school rereads?

-a.