Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book is a collection of essays and excerpts from well-known authors, illustrators, and other professionals about books that changed their lives. The entries are divided into six categories: Inspiration, Understanding, Principles & Precepts, Vocation, Motivation, and Storytelling. Each entry consists of the contributor's essay, accompanied by a sidebar with a picture and brief synopsis of each book and a description of the contributor's career. The facing pages have excerpts and pictures from the books, usually featuring relevant passages that relate to the contributor's essay. It is nicely designed and comes complete with mini-biographies of, and selected books by contributors—many of which are authors and illustrators—and a recommended book list filled with classic titles. It's also indexed both by author and book title, which comes as a relief if you're someone who often refers back to books you've read.
This book is more of an inspirational title than a reference book, making it an excellent gift for educators or enthusiasts, but less appropriate as a resource for finding new books. Its greatest strength is also its weakness: most of the books featured in Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book are at least 50 years old since the contributors are largely people who have spent a lifetime in making a success of their careers. Many of the titles are classics, but it did lead me to wonder what titles today will inspire the leaders of tomorrow.
One of the most rewarding—and frustrating—aspects of working with children is what one teacher I know calls "farming." "You plant seeds," he said, "you cultivate growth, but you don't always get to see the harvest." Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book speaks not just to the power of literature, but to the harvest, often unacknowledged until years after a book or person has touched a life. Some of the most moving tributes to children's literature are from people who have gone into non-literature fields, such as Dr. William C. DeVries, the cardiothoracic surgeon who performed the first successful artificial implantation. In his contribution he writes about how much he loved The Wizard of Oz. When the Wizard argues against having a heart, since it makes people unhappy, the Tin Woodman says, "For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me a heart." "I have often thought about this in my work," DeVries writes.
Others deal with the way in which literature touches a life during difficult circumstances. Author Julia Alvarez came late to reading, but was ultimately won by The Arabian Nights. "Wow!" she writes. "I was impressed. I hadn't known stories had this kind of power. They could save lives... Looking back, it strikes me as curious that this was the book that made the biggest impression on me as a young child. Here we were living in a dictatorship, surrounded by secret police and disappearances. It made me wonder if part of my affection for the young girl was that she had found a way to escape a situation not unlike the one we were in."
However, I think my favorite essay in the book is by the newly named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Katherine Paterson, whose books—including the Newbery winning Bridge to Terabithia—have inspired many readers. Paterson quotes environmental writer Rachel Carson's essay, 'A Sense of Wonder' in defense of her favorite book The Secret Garden: "'If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside of over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world would be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.' This is surely the gift The Secret Garden gave to me as a child, and although I'm no good fairy, it is a gift I seek to share."
What children's book had the greatest impact on you? What book (or books), new or old, do you think has impacted your kids?
Sarah Wood, a reviewer for Teenreads.com and Kidsreads.com since 2003, is a lifetime reader and writer. She refuses to accept that there are people who don't like to read and stubbornly believes this is only because they have not met the right book yet.
