Especially as a child I read a lot of books and many of them have changed me in little ways and I think each of them has contributed to who I am, so it was very difficult to choose a specific book. I considered The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino because one of my favorite teachers gave it to me and Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster because they both expanded my imagination and inspired in me a love of words and wordplay. But then I remembered a book that taught me who I wanted to be and inspired my imagination at a very young age, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
A Little Princess was one of the few hardcover books I owned besides picture books and it had a gorgeous cover. I read it several times as a child and once again as an adolescent. I was in love with the book itself and loved it even more because of the beautiful, magical story it told. But more than the magic and the imagination of Sara, what I learned from her was how to be a good person. This girl went from being the cream of the crop to the bottom of the barrel literally overnight. Of course in the end there is a happy ending and she is returned to her fortune but the way Sarah handled that misfortune was with grace and beauty. She kept herself afloat by telling herself stories and letting her imagination run away with her into a land where she was still a princess. Even when she had nothing, she shared what she had with her friend Becky. That is very much who I strive to be today. I am constantly spinning fantasies and dreaming up perfect worlds. I think I have in many ways managed to find the joy of life in any situation the way Sara did and usually have her good luck to end up back on top as well. Many of the things I admire about myself and others are characteristics that I encountered in Sara. She is loving, compassionate, generous, humble, grateful, loyal, creative, and smart. Of course at the time I never knew that this character was going to be a role model for myself and a standard to hold others to, but in a way she has become that. She is no longer just a beautiful picture on the cover of a cherished hardcover book, but a girl who lives on as part of my life.
