We got them every summer at Barringer
High---the vacation reading book list. Everyone had to read 5 books,
picked from a variety of subject categories. Remember the lists?
I always picked up my paperback books from a little luncheonette
type store on Bloomfield Avenue, between Clifton and Mt. Prospect
Avenues, right near the old Dairy Queen. That's when paperback books
could be gotten for maybe $0.50 to $2.00 each.
There were no malls back then, nor fancy bookstores that serve
cappuccino or snacks. You either went to the local library or picked
up a paperback version of it. Since you inevitably had to write
a report on your books when you went back to school, paperbacks
were good so you could make some notes and have the book handy for
the report writing. You could always pass the books along later
to cousins, friends, or siblings as they probably would be reading
them soon enough.
Reading those books during adolescent years helped mature you--
exposing the real world--or so the common and time-honored wisdom
went. Can you remember some of the ones you read or were on your
list? Here are a few to jog your memory:
Catcher in the Rye
1984
Brave New World
The Good Earth
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Cheaper by the Dozen
April Morning
Drums Along the Mohawk
The Pearl
Hiroshima
Tom Sawyer
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Any of those ring a bell? How about these......................
Travels with Charley
A Bell for Adano
Red Badge of Courage
The Mouse That Roared
The Great Gatsby
Silas Marner
Tale of Two Cities
Oliver Twist
Kon-Tiki
Silent Spring
PT-109
Surely some of those sparked a memory or two! Well maybe I'll mention
a few more......
Gone with the Wind
Mutiny on the Bounty
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Main Street
Romeo and Juliet
A Mid Summer's Night Dream
Much Ado about Nothing
Cannery Row
Wuthering Heights
Little Women
Profiles in Courage
Whew, that's quite a bit of reading. But they must have been really
good books, because many are still on reading lists today. Some
things remain pretty much the same, helping us mark that fuzzy transition
between adolescence and young adulthood--when the written experiences
of others suddenly causes us to sit up and take notice, maybe challenge
things for the first times in our lives.
Seeing something written in black and white that we only previously
snickered or whispered about when alone with our friends, seemed
to take on a kind of authority. Foul language in print, sensual
passages by the page load, anger and arrogance that jump out from
the page and grab you by the collar. You probably recognized people
like that in your neighborhood, maybe even a bit of yourself in
those words.
Afterwards, we were changed by the experience, remembering those
words perhaps for the rest of our days, even passing them down to
our children. You get to think differently about libraries after
that, seeing them not so much as dead places where books are housed,
but rather a museum of emotions, passions, and experiences.....and
it's all there, free for the taking.
Can you remember the doubts and uneasy feelings some of the stories
conjured up? Somehow your old dolls, baseball glove, or childhood
remembrances just did not seem the same anymore. You sense something
is in the air, and it's going to affect you and your friends. It's
unavoidable. It’s about growing up.
Responsibility and consequences are coming into focus, and your
high school English teachers are showing you how to make choices
in life. Those stories that you read are vignettes about what life
may have in store for you. And you thought English was only about
grammar and composition.
Pretty heavy stuff for an Old Newark memory, huh? But as you are
reading this, I would be willing to bet that passages from those
old books still remind you of a specific summer day when you read
them, or a humid, darkened room, like maybe your bedroom, when a
summer thunderstorm loomed.......and you just couldn't put that
book down. Not long after, you went into the workforce and met some
of those very people you read about. Funny how those things happen—“ain't”
it?
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