An oldie but a goodie.

I have read some amazing books as a “grown-up” (and I guess by that I mean post-college, although it could be argued that the grown-up part of this life hasn’t even begun yet). The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos especially stand out. And Anna Karenina will be one of my proudest reading achievements, once I make it through the whole thing. (I was half way there a couple of years ago, and I fully intend to pick it up again one of these days.)

As much as I would like to claim one of these respectable, “grown-up” books as life-changing, however, I have to be honest with my faithful blog reader(s). There are two books that stand on my bookshelf, each tied together with ribbon to keep their covers from falling off. They are dog-eared and stained. And they were both written by Beverly Cleary: Fifteen (1956) and The Luckiest Girl (1958).

I discovered these books long ago on one of the many bookshelves that lined my grandmother’s basement walls. Every summer my family would spend a week at my grandparent’s house, and sometimes the only comfortable place to be on those hot afternoons in Lewiston, Idaho was the cool basement, where she kept a full stock of art supplies, dress-up clothes, stuffed animals and dolls, board games, ice cream, and, of course, books.

My sister Tova would spend the days planning grand fashion shows compete with numerous costume changes for each of us; my sister Carrie would build elaborate, multi-room dollhouses out of shoe boxes and fabric scraps; and my sister Dena would sew clothes for her Cabbage Patch dolls. Meanwhile, I could be found huddled in a corner, or laying in the hammock outside, reading one of the garage-sale paperbacks my grandma had purchased during the year. But of all the books I read at my grandparent’s house, or anywhere else for that matter, these two are the books that have stayed with me.

I find great comfort in familiarity, and I have returned to these stories many times in order to find solace in a life that seems to be in constant flux. I first read them in my early middle school years, which can be just plain agony for a girl. And I read them again through the tribulations of high school, and the transition to college. Through the pain of heart breaks and the anxiety of first jobs. When I am sad, exhausted, restless, bored, or nostalgic, I can go to these stories and let go of worries for a while. They don’t require me to think too much, or consider new ideas or perspectives. They don’t elicit strong emotions. They are simply an escape.

Even though both of these stories are about a high school girl in the fifties, I have found them to be relevant in every phase of my life. Before I entered high school or fell in love for the first time, the girl’s lives were something to aspire to. When I went on to experience trouble with school work, fights with friend, or the humiliation of getting dumped, I related to the stories and felt comfort in knowing I was not the only one that felt this way. And now that I have been through the hardships of adolescence and I feel like I might just make it through to the other side, I go back to these stories to remember what I have been through and find strength in what I have learned along the way.

I feel a little silly. Nearly twenty-seven years old and so dedicated to these tattered paper-backs that I first picked up when I was about eleven. And, faithful blog reader(s), I do read age appropriate things these days. (I do! Really!) But I still connect with these melancholy stories of adolescent angst because I have been so connected to them for so long. Every phase of my life is now in these pages.

I will leave you with one of my favorite passages, not in an effort to make you understand why I connect with these books, but just because I love it so much that I would like to share with you:

Jane walked to the window and stood looking out over the lights of the town at the fog that billowed over the bay, blotting out the bridges and the city. The sound of a car driving up the road only made the house seem lonelier. In the distance the foghorns had begun their melancholy chorus. Yoo-hoo boomed a horn far away. Yoo-hoo. Come back moaned another near the bridge. Come back.

Jane pressed her forehead against the cool glass. The dance had started and Stan was dancing with the other girl, the girl he had asked because he did not want to take Jane. And when the girl singer who had made the record that was tenth place on the Hit Parade began to sing, everyone would stop dancing and gather around the bandstand. Stan and the girl would stand close together and Stan would put his arm around the girl…

Tomorrow Jane would know who the girl was. Julie would tell her, but she might never know why Stan invited the girl to go to the dance. The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else—grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser. Perhaps next year when she was sixteen…

The creeping fingers of fog began to blot out the lights of Woodmont below. Come back, come back moaned the foghorn, only to be mocked in the distance. Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo.

Ten years from now I’ll look back on this night and laugh, Jane thought. But she knew in her heart it was not true. In ten years she might look back, but she would not laugh, not even then. This night was too painful to laugh about ever. Jane knew that. Slowly two tears brimmed her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

Come back, pleaded one foghorn. Yoo-hoo, mocked the other.

—Fifteen
Beverly Cleary, 1956