Falling in Love with Edward Cullen and Other Appetites

I have been a reader for as long as I can remember.  I can recall getting books Christmas morning and finishing them by Christmas night.  Two caveats: I often skimmed the books because I was so excited to find out what happened next, so my comprehension wasn’t necessarily all that hot.  Second, this usually meant I was holed up in some corner reading instead of interacting with my family, which often caused my mom to come snatch me up to join the festivities.  

Some of the titles I read when I was 11 or 12 were quite adult in nature: think V.C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic series.  Some were more geared toward young adults (The Incredible Cat Caper), some sophisticated in the science (anything Dean Koontz), and some flat-out creepy (Stephen King, anyone?).  When I think about the books I read when I was in tweendom, I wonder if I truly understood the concepts or if my naive brain just read on the surface level.

I recently read a book about reading in schools, and the premise is that the way reading is presented and “encouraged” in schools is the way to surely kill the pleasure of reading.  I couldn’t agree more.  What was interesting, though, in the beginning of the book was an anecdote he shared about a group of girls reading an article and struggling with it.  The article was about terrorism in the post-9/11 world, and the girls had to answer questions, one of which was about the goals of al Qaeda.  When they called the teacher over to ask for help, they explained that they read the article but they couldn’t answer the one question because they didn’t know who “Al” was.  A perfect example of what I have been coming to believe more and more the longer I read and teach: we get out of literature what we bring to it.


The books I read when I was younger would taste different now.  The horror of a mother locking her children in an attic would leave a bitter aftertaste.  The antics of a would-be preteen detective discovering the identity of a cat burglar would be the lingering sweetness of the penny candy I used to get at the dairy every summer.  A creeping clown hiding in sewers? Acrid on my tongue.

It is not just age, or experience, as was the case with the girls who weren’t familiar with al Qaeda. I believe our emotional states at the time we read a book will render that book powerful enough to knock the wind from us or bland enough to collect dust on the shelf, never to be read again.  Aside: I am an avid re-reader!  There are times when a movie jogs a memory of a phrase, or a TV show reminds me of a plot, or a song elicits the mood of a favorite book, and I quite literally go to my book room to find the book and find the spot... with some of the books, I know them so well I can open to the general area and find it within minutes.  Others take yet another re-reading to get there.


Many people think I am nuts for re-reading, but I so frequently find deeper meanings or more relevant insights or just funny stuff that I missed the first time(s) in my quest to discover the ending.  For instance, I have re-read To Kill a Mockingbird every year for the past 15 while I am teaching it.  Every year, I discover something new.  There was the year that I was reading aloud, and I read the name of the dog’s owner.  You know, the dog Atticus had to kill?  Yeah, well, when I asked my squirrelly juniors to tell me about Harry Johnson, there were more than a few chuckles.  It wasn’t until I had said it out loud that I realized the double entendre.  Then there was the year when we were going through Atticus’s closing argument, and Lee actually writes the words “no child left behind.”  My epiphany, and horror, was thinking that the horrendous law that has made education barely tolerable came from one of the best books ever written.  (If it did, Ms. Lee, I apologize on behalf of humanity for it.)

There are young adult books I read now that I know would have zoomed right over my head if I had actually read them as a young adult.  The Book Thief? There is no way I would have caught, and thus fell in love with, the subtle allusions and beautiful reflection of such an ugly time.  The Hunger Games?  I don’t think my 14-year-old-brain would have made the connection to the politics and governmental allegory.  Harry Potter?  Please, I can’t even begin... that’s another writing of its own.

I don’t think books are the only medium to which this philosophy applies.  I think of movies, TV shows, songs that I have loved and hated, and I might feel differently about them now if I were to experience them for the first time again.  I think of how I have avoided things I thought inane or above me only to discover, at the right time, they are exactly what I need.

Now for my admission, much to the dismay of many of my friends and the delight of my sister and niece: I have discovered the Twilight series.  Mind you, I have not read the books but watched the movies.  I have read the summaries of the books, looked for clips of the last movie that I haven’t seen yet, and researched some of the themes.  I have even downloaded one of the songs from a soundtrack.  


I find this laughable, truly.  I am not a vampire or a romance kind of reader.  I mean, there were werewolves in Harry Potter, but they weren’t quite the same.  There has been romance in many of the books I have read, but it’s never been the central plotline.  That I have become so transfixed with this particular series has intrigued me, and thanks to a little research and reflection, I have realized it captivates me because of the themes: that each of us can choose our paths not based on things beyond our control but rather based on who we want to be, and that when you love someone, you want to protect them from the hurts of the world.  The former is something I have been working on for the past several months while the latter is something I have always believed.

They say the taste buds regenerate every 5-7 years.  If this holds true, what we once find sour may become sweet, and what we once find savory may become bitter.  The important thing, I have learned, is to be open not only in trying something for the first time.  Sometimes, our appetites change with the experiences we have.  The aroma that once made us turn our noses begins to draw us in, and the favorite tang of a trusted dish becomes bland.  We will not know unless we sample the dish.