In an updated adult version of a book published by Dial Books for Young Readers in 2014, Westminster John Knox Press brings us Stories of My Life, by Katherine Paterson. It has differences and similarities to a memoir. It begins with a look at her heritage with a host of interesting ancestors. She moves from those to her early years as a child of Presbyterian missionaries in China, the place that will feel like home to her for much of her childhood. The individual stories she tells as she becomes young adult in Japan and on the East Coast lead to those of her marriage and children. Her husband’s unflagging support and strong marriage are pictured through lean times as she pursues her dream of becoming a writer and continue through her winning of multiple literary awards. Experiences with her children provide by turns both amusing and touching experiences that wind up fictionalized in her stories.
Readers of her books will enjoy the stories of the models she identifies for the characters that populate them and may form opinions about others that seem familiar. Nuggets of wisdom thread their way through her stories. My favorite is one I had heard from her before which has a permanent place on my bulletin board because I relate to it so well, “The people who took my time were the very people who gave me something to write about.” Her life is filled family, faith, and fiction, which may seem ironic in the light of the number of her books that have been challenged and are being noted in this banned books season.
Certainly, any readers who have loved Katherine Paterson books will find these stories fascinating, especially as they marry the people in her life who serve as models – both positive and negative – with the people in her books. But be forewarned, reading this book may make you want to read any Katherine Paterson book that has escaped your attention and to reread those that did not.