"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?

Comments (5)

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I am glad you got to go back and read those books Kristin, as well as the added bonus of a new one you didn't know about. One of my favorite series of books when I was an early teen were by Lois Duncan. They were about other kids who had ESP and could do thing like astral projection. I found them facinating. It would be fun to read them again as an adult and see what I think now.

Lately we have been showing our oldest movies like Back to the Future, The Sandlot and Ferris Bueller's Day Off and it's been fun to watch them from the perspective of an adult and a parent. They also did, for the most part live up to my memories of them.
stitcher anon's avatar

stitcher anon · 664 weeks ago

She is dead????? Buggerit...I love her books. All except the cat people ones and Acorna was a bit cheesy but I love the Crystal singer books, ships who do stuff lol and of course the psychic pepes ones xx Thank you for reminding me of them.
I liked Piers Anthony's series "The Incarnations of Immortality." When I re-read it a few years ago, it was still fascinating to me.

Great question!
Huh. I'm sort of curious to go back and read my beloved Amanda Quick novels after reading this. Thanks for the inspiration!
What a great question! Lots of books I loved have stood the test of time ... and now I'm reading them to MY kids. :)

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