Do you remember the first novel you picked up? Was it for school, or did you take it off a shelf somewhere and start to fumble through the words? What are your early memories of reading?

It's easy to forget those early glimpses into novel explorations. Even if a few years have passed, I hope the time has been filled with many more adventures in in reading. If we look back at those early works, we're sometimes able to find books that will still touch us--even now, even years later.

If you're bored with reading, or having a hard time finding a book that sparks your attention, why not return to books you've loved before? Read them again, or find books by the same author. Even if you've already devoured all the books before, you may find that revisiting those favorites is just what you need to re-inspire your passion for reading. Remember when...?

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith writes: "Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time."

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is famous for "I have a dream..." It's a speech full of hope for the future (a dream that our children will live in harmony, that freedom and justice will prevail, and that an environment of hope, faith and brotherhood will transform).

Perhaps it's because that "I have a dream" speech touches me still... But, for me, January is a time of hope. It's a time when we can look forward--to gather around us that which we cherish most, and delve into a new year. So, what do you cherish? What do you love? What are the things (abstract and specific: books, libraries, education, learning, being, becoming) about which you feel most passionate? How will you support, encourage, and embellish those passions in the days, moments, and spots of time that are left in 2009?

Salman Rushdie said, "Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart."

A Little Princess is usually considered a children's book--often read by girls. But, it's one of those rags-to-riches, Cinderella stories that reminds us how quickly life can change--good or bad. Our fortunes aren't promised to us; even the most wealthy have the potential for losing it all. So there must be something more to life than what we can touch or feel; there must be something about any experience from which we can learn and grow... Then, does it matter so very much what our state in life is at the end of the day. Have we made a difference?

Although they do so much more than just that, books tug at that something we call "heart", show us ways to live--they open up ways of being and knowing and becoming. We just have to be open to the messages. And, see the results... In the book, a bakerwoman tells Sara: "I've given away many a bit of bread since that wet afternoon, just along o' thinking of you--an' how wet an' cold you was, an' how hungry you looked; an' yet you gave away your hot buns as if you was a princess." It's a bit cliche when I say that any amount of money doesn't buy happiness; but books show us how we can be most blessed by the simple pleasures in life.

Frances Hodgson Burnett writes: "If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all."

I sometimes think I could imagine a life at Walden Pond--just staying there on the land in a little cabin. Ice, snow and the call of all that resides there--beautiful!

By now, we know the reality of Henry David Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond (that he walked to town for meals, etc.) But, through his descriptions, we gain insight into nature, literature, and being--he made an unmistakeable mark on the history of American literature with his reflections of his time on Walden Pond. So, what do you know about the book?

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau writes: "Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world."

Further, he writes, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

Take the quiz, take a look at more quotes, read the complete Walden, and/or take a look at his collected essays.

What works of literature do you like to imagine?

Cover Art © Yale University Press.