Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Had Very Strong Emotions About

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s prompt is books that you had very strong emotions about. (Any emotion! Did a book make you super happy or sad? Angry? Terrified? Surprised?)

I am starting out strong on this one with Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. I did not read this as a kid but I did pick it up and read it one day while working. I used to work in an elementary school library so I would read here and there, obviously. This book though. This book. I will NEVER read it again! It was emotionally devastating. I got to the end and just was sobbing sitting there at my desk in the quiet library, all by myself. I hate this book, and I will never read it again. If you have read it you know.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating hit me in the feels in a much different way. I was in a deep state of grief over the loss of my aunt, whom was like a second mother to me in many ways. We were very close and I was struggling. This book did not erase that sadness, but it did lift me up and give me hope. It is beautifully written and is still one of my favorite books.

The Call of the Wild and Free is a book the deeply resonated within me, and spoke to my heart. Homeschool is not the perfect choice for every family, but it is the perfect choice for mine. This book put into words all I had been feeling.

I had to take the wayback machine for this one. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I read this in high school and afterwards, I gave up meat and became a vegetarian for about 30 years. I still struggle with my decision to eat meat now, but it became a convenience thing during the pandemic. My son is a total carnivore, and for a long time was failure to thrive no matter what we fed him (for five years) and my husband can’t eat carbs for medical reasons. It is just not financially easy for me to eat a different meal.

I could not make this list without including All Creatures Great and Small. My mom gave me the series when I was just a young girl, probably around ten years of age, and I devoured them. They did make me feel so many emotions – joy, but yes, also sadness. Confusion, because I didn’t understand what some of the book was talking about, because well, I was ten. However, this is another book that affected me profoundly in my life, encouraging my love of animals and all life. I even named our little homeschool after James Herriot.

Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel is one of the first nonfiction nature books that I ever read as an adult and it started me down a rabbit hole that has lasted for years. It affected me very much, it was so calming and full of hope like The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, but in a different way. It’s like that quote from Jurassic Park, “Nature finds a way” – such a powerful quote from an unexpected source. I feel like this book inspired a whole new direction in my life.

Wow when I started this post I didn’t realize how much nonfiction would be on it! Another nature nonfiction book, The Nature Fix opened my eyes to how nature heals, and I used what I learned from it to open Wyatt’s world and my own. I was always a nature-lover, a hiker, sort of outdoorsy sort (except in humidity and heat) but this showed me just how important that time outside really is for our brains.

I know that this series is considered problematic now, but I still love Little House. I read the books every year, since I was kid. I have read them even more than I have read Watership Down, which is a LOT. When I was little the idea of living so wild and free was fascinating, and it taught me a bit about a different way of life. I loved that Laura was not a perfectly behaved little girl, because I wasn’t a perfectly behaved little girl either. I tended towards heroines like Ramona, like Emily from Emily’s Runaway Imagination, and Anne from Anne of Green Gables, who tended to find themselves in predicaments, much like I did. Today, I think these old stories can still be useful as teachable moments, and can be read alongside books like Children of the Longhouse, The Birchbark House series, and Prairie Lotus which have a different perspective.

I loved this book so much! I read my copy until it fell apart and I actually just replaced it with a new copy a few months ago. I read these in high school and it sparked a love for New Orleans that has never abated. I have visited many times, the last time a week and a half before Katrina, which was a weird time to be there! I of course had my picture taken in front of Rice’s home while I was there. It also inspired me to look into my one family history and genealogy, which wasn’t as supernatural as those of the Mayfairs (or at all lol) but I did love talking to my grandparents about their lives, memories, parents and grandparents. My grandfather was born in England, and my grandma was the first of her siblings to be born in America, the rest of her family was born in Scotland, her older sisters and brothers.

And finally, of course, Watership Down.

I really can’t put into words why I love this book quite so much. I just do. There is just something about this book that is comforting and hopeful despite that hardships. Maybe that is it. Maybe it is that they endure and are resilient and rely on each other to get through their lives, as a community. They go through these hard things and keep a levity to their lives as well, a hope for a better life, which they ultimately do get. They are clever and brave and strong, and have moments of fear, even Bigwig, but get through it and live their dream.

And there you have it. I wasn’t planning on getting so serious with this, but it happened. There are so many other books that I could list but if we are talking which books made me feel the strongest emotions, they would be the books that shaped me or affected my life in some way. So that is where I went!

34 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Had Very Strong Emotions About”

  1. Joanne's avatar Joanne

    The only one from your list that I’ve read is Watership Down and I was not a fan at all… could be because I read it in high school but I just remember it being rather depressing and slow. Plus, if I’m being totally honest I have a hard time with talking animals…

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  3. Veros's avatar Veros @ Dark Shelf of Wonders

    so many of the animal related books on your list are ones I want to try, especially James Herriot’s and Meadowland. Also, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is such an evocative title it makes me curious.

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      1. Veros's avatar Veros @ Dark Shelf of Wonders

        I feel like the type of books you read are ones I WISH I read, I want to get more into nature nonfic!

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  9. marsha57's avatar marsha57

    I have read Stone Fox…many times. It was a read aloud for us in fourth grade because our entire school took part in the Iditarod (my musher never won). My BFF and I would take turns reading this book to our classes. We would pull both classes into one and one of us would read. She always, always left me that part…and I would bawl through the whole thing. I mean, I would start crying even before the end because I knew what was coming. After, I would have to go to the bathroom (which we shared with the students in that hallway…no teacher’s restrooms at all) to wash the mascara off my face!

    I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and just googled why they’re problematic. I get it. I really do, but I think there are beautiful parts of these books as well as some others that are considered problematic. But, I also speak from a place of privilege.

    Oh, my gosh…James Herriott books! I read them and reread them and had them on my shelf in my classroom. They are just such good books. You can read as much as you want and still have plenty of context. They are just wonderful.

    Thanks for sharing all these good books, Erin

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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    1. Oh my gosh. That would have been so hard!! I ugly cried, big time. That ending is shocking and horrible. Did the kids cry? I am glad that you let the kids see your emotions about it. I always knew when the 5th grade was reading Where the Red Fern Grows because the hallway would be filled with the kids crying and heading to the bathroom to clean up – and the teachers. Why such sad books? (I am shaking my fists at the heavens here)

      I agree with you! I love the Little House books so much! I was so upset when they came under fire for their content and then I realized I wasn’t viewing it through the same lens. So I get why they are considered problematic and I recognize that, but I also think they are valuable books as well. I think as parents or educators we just need to help young readers navigate topics or books that deal with these things less than ideally. Another blogger referred to a book she read that had similar issues, these books are “of their time”.

      I love James Herriot and have since my mom stuffed them into my stocking one Christmas as a kid. I read mine until they fell apart and had to buy new copies.

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  10. Wow! I knew that our reading tastes were kind of similar, but this week’s list really makes it clear how much our preferences overlap. I grew up on the James Herriot books at a young age, and had similar feelings about it. My own copy of The Mayfair Witches is still hanging on thanks to my makeshift duct-tape spine, but I haven’t gotten to visit New Orleans yet. And I vividly recall reading The Jungle and being unable to eat meat for years, until I had to start eating it again for physical reasons. But it took me like a year before I could even think of eating white rice.

    I love that you also love reading nonfiction books about nature, and are always reading with an eye out for ways to incorporate that information into your own life and even more importantly, how you can use that to enrich your kid’s schooling. That’s a really amazing thing to do.

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    1. Wow!! That is crazy!! We really do have extremely similar reading tastes. I always have my physical TBR list (because I have to write things down lol) out when I visit your blog because I know I am going to write most of the titles down to read! Lol.

      I remember being so confused at some of the content in the James Herriot books lol. The medical stuff was a bit over my head, but I feel like I learned so much from them because of that. Now my house is filled with animals and I feel like it is in part from growing up reading these books. Lol.

      And The Mayfair Witches!! I have never talked to anyone else who loved that book like I do! I was so excited when the new tv show came out, then watched one or two episodes before I realized it was just wrong. Michael wasn’t even in it for one thing! And just so many other problems, but that one was nuts to me.

      Thank you! That is really kind of you to say!!

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      1. I feel like it’s important to recognize the hard work that goes into good homeschooling. I was (and still am) obsessed with the Mayfair witches series – I did a reread of the series last year and still loved it even if the series is totally not like the book! So disappointing. And I’m so glad to hear that I inspire your TBR because you always add to mine as well. 💕

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  14. I know some on this list, but not all of them. I do love the James Herriott books but didn’t read them until I was older. As for On Plum Creek, I read that and all of them late at night and had nightmares after I read about the grasshoppers.

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