This week for Top Ten Tuesday, the ladies at The Broke and the Bookish are asking us to list those books and/or authors who introduced us to a genre, who got us into reading or who brought us back to reading. I thought it would be hard to find books to fit this category. Instead, it was hard to narrow down my choices.
1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott was not only my gateway to chapter books I read by myself, it was also my gateway book falling in love with characters.
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was my gateway book to the ways in which a book can blend humor and heavier subjects wonderfully.
3. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes was my first introduction to mental disability in a novel.
4. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle was my gateway into science fiction, introduced to me by a fifth-grade teacher who read it to our class.
5. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende introduced me to magical realism. It doesn't always work for me, but, thanks to Allende, I know it can and I keep giving it a shot.
6. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry was my gateway to the power of short stories
7. Stephen King was my gateway to epic chunksters. Oh sure, I'd read big books before but nothing on the epic scale of King's books.
8. Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss was my gateway into the interactive quality of books, especially children's books - act them out, people!
9. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner introduced me to the idea that really complex, really difficult books are well worth the time they take...also to great Southern literature.
10. Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow was my introduction to books that combine real people and real events with fiction. It's a combination I adore now!
What are some of your "gateway" books or authors?
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