28 April 2015

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Of all the authors I read as a child, I'd have to say Zilpha Keatley Snyder had the greatest impact on me. I read The Egypt Game, of course, but it was The Changeling that really hit home. This is because, like the two girls in that novel, I and my best friend (who conveniently lived next door) also created a fantasy world and played/lived in it. Afternoons and weekends were spent there. It was an idyllic childhood in many ways, and then came the day I had to move away.

Snyder had other wonderful books and I devoured many of them. The Velvet Room. The Truth About Stone Hollow. Libby on Wednesdays. I eagerly await the day my own daughter will be old enough to enjoy these, though I wonder whether she will connect with them as much as I did. A part of me is afraid she'll fail to see the glory in these stories. It is a different world now, with different sensibilities; what spoke to my experience as a child may not speak to her at all.

Even now, though, as an adult, I like to return to Snyder now and then for a quick read. Her books continue to weave magic, even now that she's passed, and I think her writing certainly helped me shape my own.

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