Actually, in NYC we didn't have middle school when I was growing up. Seventh and eighth grades were called Junior High. Fifth and sixth were part of elementary school. I'm trying to remember which books were assigned for reading in the Catholic convent boarding school I attended for 5th and 6th grades, but I'm drawing a blank. I do remember that my dad brought me a Reader's Digest on one of his weekly visits, and the nuns took it away from me.
At home I favored light-hearted memoirs, possibly because they provided a cheerful distraction from my motherless, homesick life at the time.
Through Charley's Door, by Emily Kimbrough
Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough
The Egg and I, by Betty MacDonald
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My parents lived in Greenwich Village when I was born, but moved to Queens when I was still very young. They chose an apartment in Woodside ... -
1952, age 9: Newly motherless and too young to fully appreciate the effort it must have taken my dad to have a tree and gifts that year, I s...
I'd never heard about The Egg and I until I visited the PNC where the author lived. One place in particular, but I cannot remember.
ReplyDeleteI loved that book, and I was so disappointed some years later to learn she and "Bob" had gotten divorced.
DeleteI always feels so dreadfully sad for little Susan at the Catholic boarding school in those years. I'm glad you could escape into books.
ReplyDeletePlease don't feel sad, Mali. I was sad enough for both of us at first, but by the time I left two years later—well, I can't say I was sorry to leave, but I'd made friends and enjoyed some of what the beautiful school had to offer.
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