My mother is an avid reader. Always has been. Late at night, when all the other houses on our block were dark, there’d be a light on in ours – and next to it would be my mother and her latest ‘find’ from the library. She worked in a school library from the time I was 6 years old. She turned me on to the best books and authors (The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, all those great Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood, the Bobbsey Twins, Encyclopedia Brown, Little Women (which she read to me and my sister at night) I had my own personal readers’ advisory guru who told me what to read and when to go to bed (she still does both even though I’m 47 and haven’t lived home for 25 years.) So with that DNA, it made sense that I ended up in the business of books. Now I’m the one giving her the heads up on the next ‘sure-fire bestseller’ and she loves giving the latest galley a thumbs up or a thumbs down!
I thought it’d be fun to get her ‘take’ on some of the books she’s been reading lately. She’s pretty much a non-fiction chick. Loves a good memoir. Here’s what she has to say about In The Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White. This is the first of hopefully many reviews from my mother, Virginia Stanley, Sr.
-Virginia