How the books you read growing up still matter

Think back — way back for some of you, not long ago for others — to the book you read growing up that still sticks with you today.

What was it? Why? Can you quote it? Have you re-read it lately?

Are you still dreaming of being Nancy Drew? Or living on the frontier? Roughing it in the wild with only a "Hatchet"?

Ann Hood's new book, "Morningstar: Growing Up with Books," talks about the lasting magic of a childhood spent reading. She joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about her favorites growing up, and what we can still learn from them today.

Hood didn't come from a family of readers. "They considered me to be like an exotic bird," she said.

Still, she remembers spending all day on a beach blanket on the Rhode Island shore, lost in books. She finds herself all these years later still wishing she was a March sister, right out of "Little Women."

How did a book written in the mid-1800s resonate with her so deeply?

"I just realized a few days ago, in the opening pages of ['Little Women'], that they talk about their father being away at war," Hood said. "Jo comments that he won't be home for a while, and that she's too afraid to say he'll never come back at all. When I read that book, my father was in the Navy in Cuba, in Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban Missile Crisis... I think the opening pages drew me in because it said the thing I was so afraid to say myself."

Hood became obsessed with every little detail of the book, wanting to literally live inside it: She wanted to carry a baked potato around to keep her hands warm like the March sisters, and she wanted to call her own mother "Marmee." (Her mother said "no," and "definitely no.")

The lasting power of stories from different times and different locations is still striking to Hood.

"It's amazing to me you can read a book about nineteenth century Russia or an upper-class Jewish girl in the New York City or a small town basketball star in Pennsylvania, and you feel like it's your story, like the writer was looking right into your soul," Hood said.

The books that stick with you

What book do you still think about today? Listeners shared some of their favorites. Add your own book to the conversation on Twitter @TheThreadMPR.

One caller, Marty, thanked his teacher for instilling a love of reading: "I didn't know I would become the avid reader that I am, but she gave me 'Brave New World' and 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Animal Farm' and that's all it took. I've been reading three or four books at a time for the rest of my life."

Another caller, Josh, said he still thinks about S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders." His own son read at the same age that he did: "It made a strong impression on him ... I think [Hinton] has a way of capturing the fragility and sensitivity and fierce bonding between young boys turning into men. It still resonates."

Other recommended titles:

• "Roots" by Alex Haley

• "The Giver" by Lois Lowry

• "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katharine Paterson

• The Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Sigrid Undset

• "Caddie Woodlawn" by Carol Ryrie Brink

• The Betsy-Tacy novels by Maud Hart Lovelace

• "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery