Look Through my Window

These posts may not always be about the specific book in the title. This series is about my love of books, and my journey as a bookworm. Hopefully, I am sharing my love with you, and I hope that it's propelling you to investigate books you've never heard of.

Books are my friends, books are my sanctuary.

They have taught me many lessons. When I was growing up, I wasn't normal. I wasn't the hilarious, chipper, outgoing (sometimes) girl you know. I will always be an original. I am a unique imprint on the world. 

But, I had a different growing-up experience than most people. I was isolated. Uneducated. Socially obtuse.

My window to the real world was books. My escape. They have always been an escape.

(That window was a bit skewed by me only being allowed to read "old" books, but, it was still a window.)

My journey through life is littered by hundreds of books. I'm shaped by them. Changed by them. I'm affected by them in ways that maybe only other bookworms understand.

Look Through my Window (Jean Little, published 1970) was one of the most life-altering books of my young life.

How did such an obscure, unknown book change my life?

Jean told me I could write. Jean told me I had stories worth telling. I learned that I could write poetry. It didn't matter if it didn't rhyme, it was still a poem. I could be different, and it was okay. (This was the only window of my life in which I wrote poetry and truly believed it was good.)

The story, briefly, is about Emily, a bookworm, stumbling through adolescence, who found two new friends who are all different than her, but they click despite their differences. They each had three distinctive writing styles, they learned from each other, they formed a writing club. 

Life had been quiet and peaceful for Emily, but with her three new friends and their little siblings, it was a new, different kind of life, filled with chaos and noise, with overflowing bathtubs and missing children. It's as wonky and wonderful as it sounds.

I challenge you to pick up a book and learn a lesson from it.

Words have life. Words on the page leap gloriously into our imaginations. They are so powerful.

Words can change the world.

My copy.

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series.