Celebrate the Classics: Why You Can and Should Read the Great Books
By Calee M. Lee
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About this ebook
Whether you’re a teacher hoping to inspire students to love the classics or simply a curious mind looking to understand the great literature that has shaped the foundations of our society, this book will give you concrete tips for reading and enjoying classic literature.
This free guide has been made available to help people discover a love of reading classic books.
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Celebrate the Classics - Calee M. Lee
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Introduction
I am the first to admit that I am not particularly well read. I can’t parse Latin. The Greek gods are forever jumbled in my memory. I have never read A Tale of Two Cities, nor stayed awake past the first five minutes of the audiobook. I was not an English major.
I may not be terribly well read, but I read a lot. I do not keep track of everything I read, mainly because I am a little bit lazy, a little bit embarrassed by the content, and I completely missed out on the gene that gives pleasure when one can quantify daily steps or calories or countries visited. Amazon tells me, that since I received my first Kindle in 2010, I have added over 1800 books to our digital library. Guessing that I’ve read somewhere around a third of the books I own or have borrowed from our local library, that’s still 600 books in six years. That comes out to a book every three and a half days or so, which seems about right. I read so much that you would think I would have a better description for the amount I read, yet, I stand with my original declaration. I read a lot.
That Kindle I received in 2010—it proved to be much more than a really nice birthday present from my mom. After years of reading a book or two a year, convinced that there wasn’t time to dive into a book except on vacation, I started reading again. One afternoon, my four-year-old daughter saw me reading on our couch. She asked if I would read her a story, and how could I refuse! When we discovered that eBooks for kids didn’t much extend beyond a clunky (and non-illustrated) version of The Velveteen Rabbit, I offered to make her one. That first children’s book I wrote turned into dozens more, sourced from artist friends and family. Soon, my side job became my real job and Xist Publishing (pronounced exist
) was receiving queries from authors and illustrators who saw our books and wanted to join our mission of helping kids develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes.
It’s been a joy to bring beautiful new picture books to millions of children. There’s a special magic that happens when we take a story that has never existed before and let an illustrator breathe life into the pages. We’ve all helped something exist that didn’t before—but the work of creation doesn’t stop with publication. As a book moves out into the world, each reader imbues the story with their own magic, their own energy. Readers bring themselves to a book, so that even the youngest children; even the shortest stories become something greater once the magic of reading happens. Each time a story is read, a new spark of imagination comes into the world.
As we grew Xist Publishing over the years, a funny thing happened—my children continued to grow. The once four year old was now eight and had long since grown out of our picture books and early readers. I couldn’t acquire books fast enough to keep up with her reading appetite and I began to wonder if it might be time to introduce her to some old friends of mine.
By eight, my daughter was long acquainted with Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy. And Harry and Hermione of course. But her reading diet consisted mainly of secretly heroic, usually magical children and I thought there might be a chance to expand her horizons without a trip through another wardrobe. We took a long family road trip and brought the Ingalls girls along. As my daughter dove into life on the prairie, I realized there was more work for Xist beyond creating new children’s books. It was time to bring our commitment to excellence in digital books (and print, by now too!) to some of the greatest books in literature.
Xist Classics was born out of that same simple desire to read my daughter a wonderful story in a format that looked