I Am the Messenger by Mark Zusak. 3.5 stars
It’s possible that I stopped reading whatever books my kids were reading once they outgrew my taste.
So many of my memories about raising my kids are tied to what I read them. There were the Harry Potter years marked by my ongoing attempt to master a Professor Snape voice. I remember the Amelia Bedelia series about a young maid who gets everything wrong (when asked to change the towels in the bathroom, she cuts them up with scissors. Ha-ha? I’m pretty sure my kids didn’t find that any funnier then than I do now). I read my eldest son every single word of all the Animorph books, a series about a group of teenagers who fight a secret invasion of mind controlling aliens. There were 54 books in the Animorph series. Taken together that’s longer than Moby Dick. Thankfully, the Animorph books were way better written.*
*I am very serious about that statement. If I had to rank them, I’d put them in this order:
Harry Potter
Animorphs
Amelia Bedelia
Moby Dick
Obviously, Amelia Bedelia isn’t better than Moby Dick. They’re tied. Amelia only goes first because I’m alphabetizing.
When I stopped reading bedtime stories to my kids, I initially made the mistake of encouraging them to read everything I’d read and loved. One day I unthinkingly suggested a Steven King book to my then young son who dutifully read it and then told me it was, “really, really rapey.”
I suspect much of what I liked about this YA novel back in 2012 was that I stole my copy from my daughter. Books are more than the sum of their pages. They can be the tangible outline of a reader’s soul and swiping a book from your child and reading it with genuine interest is a rite of passage for a parent. Better still, it’s a rite of connection.
Kid’s book or not, I might have enjoyed I Am The Messenger even if I hadn’t swiped it from my daughter. True, it’s overwrought and overwritten but I’m a sucker for any story that tosses magic into the world the way you might pour tabasco on scrambled eggs. Here a young cab driver is mysteriously led into a life of service, meaning and purpose by a series of strange letters he receives. I’m sure I’m far too old for a novel that uses magical to explain the meaning of life but I do believe in service as the road to purpose and meaning. But then, I believe in magic too. It’s entirely possible that I stopped reading whatever books my kids were reading once they outgrew my taste. I Am The Messenger isn’t as good as any of the 54 Animorphs books, but, honestly, what is?