Hello everybody, my name is Cara, and today I'm here to do the Memory Book Tag.
This tag was originally created by Katie from aseaoftomes and she was also the one
who tagged me so I will link her down below. #1: Early years: What's the
first book you can remember reading by yourself? I actually had a really hard
time with this so I'm gonna go with one of the first books I remember like
seeking out in class and reading by myself, I'm sure I read books by myself
before this but for some reason the one that kept popping into my head was the
Junie B. Jones series *laughs*, I don't remember the author at all [Barbara Park], I just remember that
this was one of those series where I would go to our little like book area in
first grade and seek out like if there were new books there and yeah, Junie B.
Jones! Specifically I remember the fruitcake one for
some reason, that like really stuck in my mind, but I know I was reading books by
myself before that, like in kindergarten and before, but that's my answer.
#2: School: Discuss a book you had to read for school that you have strong
memories about. So I'm gonna do something a little different, I'm gonna go with a
poem actually and please forgive my Latin, I do not speak Latin, but it was
Dulce et Decorum Est, and I think that was by Wilfred Owen, and we read
that actually in 12th grade and one of the poems [my teacher] chose was Dulce et Decorum
Est, and the reason I have so many strong memories about this is because
for the longest time like basically my whole life up to that point, I had
thought I really didn't like poetry and I have no reason for that,
I don't--I don't remember a particular experience that made me decide I didn't
like poetry I just always had it in my head that like "I'm a book person,*laughs* like
poetry is not for me, it's very pretentious and it doesn't mean anything"
and like I just didn't like it, and then I read that poem and it stuck with me
for so long to the point where like actually this year I was working on a
project that involved searching-- searching out World War I poetry and I
remembered that one specifically and I looked it up. Reading that poem was just
such a visceral and powerful experience and the fact that it--that that poem is
what convinced me that I could enjoy poetry, like it changed my mind about an
entire range of written work that I had thought I--like I had made up my mind I
didn't enjoy, and like that poem is just so incredible and it's--it's bleak but
it's beautiful in the way that it's written and I just...I cannot say enough
wonderful things about it, I'm definitely going to link it
down below and I encourage you to read it because it really did change the way
I viewed certain kinds of literature. #3: Family: Talk about a book
you remember reading with your parents. I was very lucky, my parents read a lot
with me and my brother and sister but I'm gonna go with one that I think--I'm
pretty sure our mom was the only one who ever read this one to us even though my dad
did read to us and that was The English Roses and it's by Madonna, and I chose
this one because I just have...like this is one of the coziest, coziest read aloud
memories I have and the illustrations [by Jeffrey Fulvimari] were so beautiful and the story was so
beautiful; it's about female friendship so I think
that was definitely an important establishing moment for me as a young
reader!, but it was about not judging people based on appearances and how you
never know what's going on in someone's life and I loved the art and I just--I
just remember sitting down with my sister, and my mom reading this book to
us and it was just such a like warm memory. #4: Midnight: Talk about a
book you remember staying up late to read or finish. Um I probably have more
answers for this than I should have *laughs* but I'm just gonna go with one and that is
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, but specifically I'm talking about the
first one, and I think--I think it was even--I think it might have even been me
rereading this book so I didn't really have an excuse for why I had to stay up
late and read it. I have such a specific memory about when this happened because
I would be reading, I think I had...I don't remember if I had a flashlight or if I
had already had my light installed by my bed or whatever but I was--I'd be reading
it and then I could hear my mom like start to come down the hall and I would
like flip off the light and I would like pull the covers over and I'd hide the book under
the covers, like *laughs* you know in like TV shows where they always show kids reading
under the covers, like I actually kind of did that *laughs*
except not all the way under the covers and I specifically remember I was at the
part of the first book where the troll incident happens, like that was the part
I specifically remember almost getting caught because my mom came in and she
actually--she might have caught me one time when I did that, probably more than
one time but at the time I was like "Mom you're being so unreasonable I just want
to stay up and read!" and of course she was like "you have school the next
morning, like I want to take care of you, you shouldn't be doing this" but you know
I clearly knew better. #5: Holiday: Talk about a bookish memory
from the holidays and I chose Christmas and the book I chose was The Nutcracker
by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and this is the one that is illustrated
by Maurice Sendak. I think I've mentioned this briefly before um the reason I have
so many good memories associated with this book is for one thing Christmas is
my favorite time of year, it's my favorite holiday. Like the funny thing
about this memory is I'm not actually sure we ever finished this book at
Christmastime, but I remember multiple years in a row like we would--we would
figure out these fun things we wanted to do over the winter break and like for
Christmas specifically, and um we almost always had this book as like on that
list and like this idea that it was gonna be this really fun like family
read aloud and every year *laughs* we wouldn't finish it! like we would get distracted
by other Christmas books or we would just be--we would just be like doing
other things with our family so I loved that this was like this eternally
hopeful like "we're gonna get to it this year!" but I did eventually read this
by myself and I did end up really enjoying it and
I just want to show you some of the illustrations, and if you read the
original Nutcracker story it's very different I think from a lot of
adaptations, it's really strange and surprisingly dark. An unusual kind of
memory to think of fondly, but yeah, I loved almost reading this book! *laughs*...
we even got multiple chapters into it and it just never happened like all the
way through. #6: Passion: Talk about a book that helped shape you, ie, a
career path, an area you enjoy, etc. And do you guys remember the Magic Tree House
nonfiction companion books? because I think it was the third one, I don't
remember what it was called if it was like Ancient Egypt or like Mummies and
Pyramids or what, I'll insert a picture, but I loved that book,
I must have reread this thing...I don't even know how many times. We had a--we had
the first few non-fiction books but this was the one I kept coming back to and
even if it didn't create my love for ancient Egyptian history and culture and
and myth and all of that I think it definitely solidified it and I just--I
really enjoyed reading that book multiple times. #7: Travel:
Discuss a book you read on vacation or a trip that brings up fond memories. I'm
gonna go with Cheaper by the Dozen by Ernestine Gilbreth Carey and Frank B.
Gilbreth, Jr., I think. So this is like actually a nonfiction kind of a
biography of their dad and he's like--he was an efficiency expert [and so was their mom!] and their whole
family is just so interesting and for some--like this is a very cozy
feeling book, I remember years ago I brought it with me to reread because
this is a book I reread over and over because I just enjoyed it that much, I
brought it with me when my mom and I went to visit family of hers like in the
Midwest and normally our whole family would go but my brother and sister had
like a commitment that they had to stay for so my dad stayed with them so it was
just me and my mom and the reason I had such a good memory associated with this
is because this is one of the first times I remember my mom and I reading
the same book. She ended up picking this up because I had kind of casually mentioned
what it was about and that I really enjoyed it and she just like, she read I
think the whole thing in one or two days and my mom is like so busy and she's
always--she's always running around like making other people's lives easier so
for her to like devote that much time to a book, even--like to doing something for
herself like that, that was a really big deal and it was just so much fun to get
to discuss it with her and I think that was--like I said I think that was one of
the first books that we had read that was the same 'cause our reading taste didn't
really overlap too much before that so I just--I just have good memories
associated with that, of like spending time with my mom and getting to talk
about books with her. #8: Hideaway: Discuss one of your favorite places
to read and why it's one of your favorites. So I'm gonna go with um my
bunk bed from when I was younger, I actually had a bunk bed for a really
long time and I slept on the top bunk because I was the big sister and I
wanted to *laughs* and specifically I'm gonna talk about when I got a nightlight, like
a reading light actually, installed that was like on the wall and that I could
reach over and turn on so I could read up there and I just--I loved that because
my house was like pretty loud *laughs* so whenever--whenever I wanted to read it's
like I had to find somewhere where there wasn't a TV on or where people
weren't talking or like things like that, and even though I liked some background
noise I really liked having kind of my own space where I could just like--like
it was my bed, like nobody else could come up here, it was my bed, so I really
really enjoyed that, having my own kind of cozy little like reading nest, it was
really nice. #9: Life changes: Name a book that helped you with a big
life change, i.e., going to college, dealing with a breakup, etc. I'm gonna go with
kind of a recent one and that is the poetry of Mary Oliver. More than like a
specific life event, her poetry found me at a time I really really needed it, I
was going through some really bad things over--over the summer, this last summer of
2018, I was just going through a really hard time. Like specific poems of hers
kept finding me at moments when I needed them, like I think this happened one or
two, possibly even three times, and it wasn't until very recently that I
realized they were all by the same poet which inspired me to
seek out more of her work. If you're interested a couple of the poems I mean specifically
were I think Wild Geese, which is a very famous one of hers, and another famous
one of hers which is When Death Comes, which is surprisingly uplifting and
beautiful despite the title, and I just really appreciated her style of writing
and actually she just died a couple of days ago and even though I had
discovered her so recently I felt--I felt such an immense sense of loss because I
had only discovered how important she was to me recently and I remembered I
was at work when I found out and I just-- I just sat there for 10 minutes like
crying at my desk off and on, because of how much her work meant to me and um...
sorry! and like how much it had gotten me through things and I felt like I had
missed out because it I had discovered it so late but anyway I'm really *laughs* I'm
gonna stop before I get too emotional about it but I just think she was an
incredibly talented poet and it really--it really angers me that she is written
off [by some critics] as being too sweet or too positive and I think there's a lot of misogyny
tied up in that as well but I think for her to have such a talent for describing
the beauty of life with the suffering too, I think that is a really powerful gift
and something that not a lot of people have and I just, like the way that she--
the way that she meets you where you are, you know, if you read her poetry when
you're--when you're feeling very bleak and hopeless and she kind of lifts you
out of that not by making you feel like you're silly for being upset about
things but by kind of like acknowledging that bad things happen but there are
also good things, and I don't know if I'm describing any of this competently at
all but um, Mary Oliver is wonderful. And finally #10 is Stone: Discuss three
books or series that imprinted on your soul and impacted you in many ways.
I'm gonna go in chronological order and one of the first was The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This is the book that got me into reading, it was one
of the first things I remembered rereading over and over and over and I
love that it kind of--I think it kind of protected me from being intimidated by
classics um because like I didn't--I didn't know
what a classic novel was when I started reading this. I love the message of hope
but I also love that Mary Lennox like, she doesn't just turn into this perfect
sweet little girl, like she keeps her--her spunk and her fire
and I love that. I love the message about-- about how people can make the decision
to become better people and how people's circumstances can affect the way they
grow up but that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for the choices you make
and I just--I love this book so much. Next is a series and that is the Artemis Fowl
series by Eoin Colfer. Um this is my tabbed copy as you can see, I'm currently
rereading it for the Artemis Fowl readalong that I am co-hosting and this was
such an influential series for me and I think I'm only realizing as I get older
how much of an impact it had on me, like not just I really enjoyed this series
and it was um, it was one of the first series I remember like actively
anticipating the next books for along with Harry Potter, but I just--I just love
this series so much and I think that this was one of the ones kind of along
with The Secret Garden that from a young age made me realize like character
development and by extension people's development, like people can become
better, people can change, and I think *laughs* this also kind of set me on my path
of loving anti-heroes or kind of like complex character arcs and I just can't
say enough wonderful things about this series, every time I reread it I am still
astounded by how much I love the characters and how--how much I enjoy
the world and the story, and just the really complex issues these books deal
with about things like--things like morality and how far you're willing to
go to protect people you care about, like the things that you might do that are
bad but if you're doing them for good reasons does that make it okay? and
things like that, and I just really love this series and it was definitely a
formative one. And I could have gone with Harry Potter too [for my 3rd one] but I think that's a
very formative series for a lot of people and I wanted to be a little more
specific so I'm actually gonna go with a book that I read relatively recently in
my reading life compared to those other two and that is The Book Thief by Markus
Zusak. And I have talked about this book before, as with those other ones. This
book was one of the things that made me realize that I'm never gonna stop being
surprised at how much I love stories, because I came across this book at a
time when um I think I was pretty confident about the fact that like "I
already know that books are wonderful, like I'm already a reader," not that I
couldn't find books I loved but I was kind of convinced that I probably
wouldn't find another book that really surprised me with how much it affected
me? I don't know if that distinction makes sense
but in my head that's kind of where I was, and then I read this book and I
understand it's a very polarizing book, I know that a lot of people have been
reading it lately and [been] disappointed because it doesn't live up to the hype,
and I understand that: the writing style, the concept, the characters, they're very
out there and I think for a lot of people they wouldn't work but for a lot
of people they do, and I was one of those people, and this book just...I...oh my God, I--
I don't even know how to talk articulately about this book because it
means so much to me and because the--the compassion and the honesty and the way
it talks about humanity, the kind of the highs and lows like the--the terrible
things that people can do but also the really beautiful and wonderful things
people can do, and the things it says about storytelling and how much
storytelling matters, and some of these characters that I just like love so
deeply and I just...everything, everything about this book really just speaks to my
soul on a very very personal, fundamental level, and that's why I'm including it on
this list. Okay everybody, so that was the Memory Book Tag, um...I got a little
unexpectedly emotional for some of that, uh...*laughs* but those are some books that I
have very strong memories for. Please let me know down below if you have read any
of these books what you thought of them or let me know in the comments if you
guys have a book or series that you are only realizing now as an adult like how
fundamentally it changed you or influenced you, kind of like I was
talking about with Artemis Fowl. I will tag a couple of people in the
description so please be sure to check that, but if you want to do this tag
definitely do it, I really really enjoyed it, thank you again Katie for tagging me.
Thank you guys so much for watching, I will see you soon with another video, and
I hope you love the next book you read. Bye!
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