I am currently reading Without a Map, a memoir by Meredith Hall. Written in 2007, this is her story of becoming pregnant during her junior year in high school. (Though she doesn’t describe it as such, we might now recognize this as date rape, since she was a sixteen year old virgin seduced by a college man looking to score.)

The year was 1965 and what followed the discovery of her pregnancy was shaming and shunning by everyone she knew – her friends, her family, her church and any total stranger who might hear the story.  In her whole world, there was not one person who stood beside her. Her father and his wife provided a roof over her head, barely, but never a word of love or understanding. Not even a question as to how this might have happened, which in itself would have shown a certain amount of caring.

The effect the shunning had on the young girl, the lack of empathy for the loss of her child, society’s need to mete out a lifetime of punishment for one moment of indescretion is told bravely in this bestselling memoir.

This is a powerful book you would do well to seek out.

I recently re-read the classic Heidi by Johanna Spyri. This children’s book was written in 1880 and translated into English I don’t know when.  Heidi was the first book I remember reading more than once.  And I don’t remember having a problem with difficult words in the text when I was ten years old. I must have picked up the meanings from context clues.

The book is over three hundred pages, considered excessive in today’s literary climate. Those in the know about children’s reading abilities maintain that such a long story cannot hold a child’s interest to the end. J.K. Rowling proved them wrong.

In addition to “above grade level” words, Johanna Spyri breaks other “rules” of today’s writing. Long sentences, long paragraphs, long chapters. Yet, as the several times before when I enjoyed this story, I couldn’t seem to put the book down, even though I knew the outcome.

Shirley Temple immortalized the little Swiss girl, Heidi, on screen many years ago. Through the magic of remastering and cable networks, children of today can experience this old movie. I only hope this might then inspire some to search out and read this wonderful book.