Authors in the Corner: Daphne Grab

Today, we have with us Daphne Grab.

Daphne Grab grew up in a small town in upstate New York. She has worked a number of jobs including teaching high school history, building houses for Habitat for Humanity and teaching ESL in China. She also earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the New School. In 1998 she moved to New York City where she discovered that she has always been a city girl at heart. She lives there now with her husband and children. Her first teen novel, Alive and Well in Prague, New York, was released this year.

------------------------

I think a lot of book people were read to a ton when they were little. My mom was an English teacher and my dad was a literature professor, so our house had books everywhere you looked. And I got read to all the time. Even after I learned to read my mom still read to me at night, stories we both enjoyed, and I think she did that until I was eleven and needed those last minutes before bed to be on the phone with friends talking about all the events in our junior high lives (which were considerable so we needed a lot of phone time!).

The first book I remember being read to me was SYLVESTER AND THE MAGIC PEBBLE. Do any of you guys know that one? It’s this great story about a donkey who finds a magic pebble and turns himself into a rock with it by mistake- great premise for a story, right? It’s William Steig so the illustrations are as good as the story. I remember my dad really loved the book and would get a little choked up at the end when Sylvester’s parents unknowingly helped him become a donkey again and they all danced around together.

Which reminds me of my mom’s favorite book to read to me: CHARLOTTE’S WEB. I loved this one though I never got why my mom cried at the end when Charlotte knows she’s going to die but she’s saved Wilbur. I mean, it was sad but my mom really sobbed. When I got older I realized it made her think about one day passing away and leaving me and my sister. I think really great books like this make you think about your own life and maybe make meanings of things in new ways. I cry at the end now too.

Now that I have my own kids I get to revisit books I loved from when I was little, and I’ve already started a library of things to read to them as they grow (they are three now.) It’s going to be really fun to be on the other end of this tradition!

So what are some of the books that you were read as a kid?

Thanks Daphne!