A Book That Changed Me
Posted by annastan on August 17th, 2009. Filed under: Books.At the Children’s Literature Institute at Simmons College a few weeks ago, Anita Silvey raised the question: What children’s book changed the way you see the world? One of the first books that came to my mind was Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien. I remember reading the book when I was young and being absolutely mesmerized by it. I reread it about a year ago and was amazed by it all over again.
The story describes a girl’s struggle to survive after a nuclear holocaust; for all we know, she might be the last girl alive on earth. The stakes are so high from page one that the story sucked me right in. Trying to imagine a world that was completely charred and dead was disturbing but powerful. I think that’s what made this book stay with me for so many years, though I think it frightened me more when I read it as an adult than when I read it as a child.
What made Z for Zachariah so life-changing is that I think it was the first truly dark book I read. It made me realize that stories can be somber and hopeless from the beginning and that they don’t have to have happy endings. After that my reading tastes got darker and darker, so that by the time I got to high school I was reveling in Stephen King. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy a light read, but there’s something about dark, end-of-the-world stories that really gets my imagination going. I think that’s why I love reading them, and why I can’t help but write them.
