“I think you just became a blog post,” I said to my sister.

“Sweet.” 

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We were talking about books, specifically those gems that shape you as a young reader and stay with you into adulthood. Or hopefully they stay with you, anyway.

“When I was in middle school,” she said, “I remember we had to do a book report, but it could be on any book in the school library. And even though I hated to read, I really connected with the book I picked — but I can NOT remember what it was. It was something with a lion. And a river.”

“Hmm. Is there a river in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe?”

“It wasn’t that one. And that’s ALL I remember. A lion, a river, and a heartstone. But I might be making that part up. Pretty sure I am.”

“Wait… I want to Google this. A lion, a river and a heartsong?”

“Heartstone, that I’m possibly making up. Also, not sure about the river.”

“Hmm. Do you remember what the cover looked like?”

“No.”

“Hrm.”

“Maybe I have a folder with my old book reports somewhere.”

Google wasn’t super-impressed with my search strand. “C’mon, you’ve gotta give me more than that,” it said. Pretty saucy for an algorithm that needs two keystrokes to know what I want, usually.

Next I hit the Listopia feature on Goodreads, but the maddening thing about this is that it isn’t my hunt. I could scroll right past the book my sister was talking about and never know it. That’s why I’ll put it out there to you, Dear Reader… Name that YA fantasy involving a lion, a river, and maybe a heartstone, which was probably published some time in the Nineties… or any time before then. And… Go!

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It makes me sad to think of the forgotten gems. Although I made an effort to seek out some of the books I can remember loving from my elementary school years — Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, Wait Till Helen Comes  by Mary Downing Hahn, The Dollhouse Murders  by Betty Ren Wright, Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy, The Girl with the Silver Eyes  by Willo Davis Roberts, Matilda by Roald Dahl — the fact is that I’ve forgotten many more than I’ll ever be able to recall. Today I found a certificate from 1993 congratulating me for joining the 600-Minute club. That’s 10 hours of bookishness, and for that particular year, I can tell you it was probably some combination of V.C. Andrews, Stephen King, and Sweet Valley High.

That’s a bit cute and slightly embarrassing, but it’s far from illogical. Those books were extensions of the patterns I began with my earliest picks back in elementary school, and they are also revealing of the reading experiences I’m still choosing: books that explore the painful depths of family ties, books that speculate on the nature of fear, books that solve a slice of life problem with a little drama and a little humor. And by the way, it took me a minute to come up with something redeeming about the SVH books, but actually, they confronted me early with some of the battles teens face and let me practice my responses. I don’t think that was wasted.

I flatter myself that my tastes are more refined now, that I’ve traded up: family sagas with a bit more literary oomph, ghost stories with more psychological elements and fewer berserk bloody endings, and Christian fiction with practice battles more relevant to my life today than teen drama would be.

So there it is. Studying the progression of the books I’ve enjoyed becomes an exercise in knowing my own mind and my self-education in some pretty huge topics — family, fear, and life. That’s why I wanted to find the lion-river-maybe-heartstone book for my sister — because maybe she would think of it and realize something worth knowing, something poignant and fundamental, hidden in long forgotten pages.

Got a long-lost, recently-found favorite? Share the author, book or series that made all the difference in the comments section below!