Friday, December 08, 2006

I Capture the Castle


A couple of Christmases ago, I bid on this book on eBay, on behalf of a friend, who was hoping to score a very cool Christmas gift. I lost the bidding war...but I'm proud to announce that I bid the book up to about $50.00, so it at least cost the other bidder a fair chunk o' cash.

Apparently Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle is a very popular book from many of my female friends' adolescent years. I found it in one of my favourite used bookstores (Macondo Books in Goo) and decided to read it and find out why. I ended up devouring the book last Sunday, sitting in the living room armchair.

What makes this book worth reading is its dynamic narrator, Cassandra, daughter of a world-famous novelist and aspiring writer. This young woman makes you want to write journal entries of your own! Smith does a good job of capturing the world through the perspective of a teenage artist.

This is the kind of book that I will have in my classroom library if I end up teaching intermediate and/or putting on my recommended recreational reading lists for intermediate/senior English.

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