Reading

Twins???

Okay, who am I quoting??? It could be several of my children, but it's not. . . if you recognize yourself in this quote you will know why I thought it worth posting!

"I loved fairy tales and their richness in the grotesque. I read them all--Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grimm, Aesop, whatever was on the library shelf--a book a day, many of them devoured at bedtime, which, my mother said, was how I ruined my eyes and why I had to wear glasses at a young age."

I know we completely devoured at least 2 copies of the Brothers Grimm, not the watered down version, but the complete and grotesque stories. Those stories were read in the car driving through various states and foreign countries to the south, too riveting at times to let the exotic scenery passing outside the window interrupt the ending of a story.

"The stories we love to read may very well have to do with our emotional obsessions, the circuitry between our brain and our heart, the questions we thought about as children that we still think about, whether they are about the endurance of love, the fears that unite us, the acceptance of irreversible decay, or the ties that bind that turn out to be illusory."

"I also read Bible stories which I thought were quite similar to fairy tales, for they too contained gory images, gut-clenching danger, magical places and a sense that things are never as they first appear. By the end of these stories much had always changed. . . . I love these stories because, along with the horrific, they contained limitless and amazing ways in which people, places, and curcumstances changed. . . They gave me a sense of wonder that mirrored my own life."

So, to you, who like Amy Tan, grew up reading the Brothers Grimm and scripture stories, how did they impact your life???

Never forget there are limitless and amazing ways in which life changes. . . . And I hope it is always for the better--even when in the midst of change it may seem completely grotesque.