"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. " -Helen Keller

Monday, July 02, 2012

Is it as good today as it was yesterday?

There are so many things from our childhood that we have fond memories of...so many things from when we were 5 or 10 or 15 that we look back at and smile. But, so often, those events or books or foods don't hold up to the test of time. Our tastes change. Our desires change. We change and simply don't find the same pleasures in things that we liked when we were younger.

Every so often, we rediscover something from our youth and, not only is it good but it is as good as we remembered.  Just this past week, I went on an Anne McCaffrey reading binge. As much as I love her Dragonriders of Pern books, the ones I really wanted to reread were some books I first read back in high school, her Crystal Singer books. To my delight, they were just as good as when I first read them.

It was so much fun sitting down with The Crystal Singer and Killashandra. I think part of the reason I loved those books so much is that the heroine was a strong but flawed person...she lived this amazing life but she sacrificed for the amazing. When I finished Killashandra, I went online to get links to the books so I could add them to my book challenge list.I was shocked and thrilled to discover that there was a third book in the Crystal
Singer series. This was like a little gift from the universe because, after Anne McCaffrey died late last year, I never expected there to be more books from her that I didn't know about.

I had to have the third book and I had to have it immediately. Crystal Line was a wonderful addition to the series. Even reading it for the first time through adult eyes, I got sucked into the story just as much as I did the first time I read the other two books. I'm so glad I reread the first two books and to have them topped off by the third book made it amazing. The whole series truly did stand up to the test of time.

Have you revisited anything from your childhood? Did it stand the test of time or did it fall short?