What was your favorite summer read? Mine was The Hunger Games. (I'll be telling you more about it later.) Students are always asking me what my all-time favorite book is, though, and that is a very hard question to answer. Sometimes I cop out by saying that my favorite book is the last one that I read. In some ways that is true because I usually get wrapped up in all of the books that I read. I have to admit, though, that every once in awhile I do pick up a stinker, so I can't always say that the last book was the best.
If pressed, I would have to say that my favorite book of all time is The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank. I read this back when I was in junior high, and its impact on me was great. Never before had I been so moved by a book. It opened my eyes to a world that I wouldn't have thought could exist, and I was shocked to learn that it was true. It changed me from the young innocent that I had been to a more mature reader, aware of the harsh realities in life.
A more recent book set during the time of the Holocaust had a similar moving effect on me. Its title is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. At once it is a simple tale of a young boy growing up alongside a German concentration camp and the greater story of the senseless cruelty of an entire political regime.
Neither of these books are light reads but rather ones to be read for quiet reflection. I would recommend both.