GWS :: eighteen
upon reading National Velvet for the first time as an adult–
In my whole life I have never been more captured, delighted, and moved by a book. It is not mainly a book about horses, but about people. By the end of the first chapter that close and lovely family and its daily life were as real and dear to me as the world I live in. I felt, and as I write still feel very much a part of its cozy, protected, peaceful world. Finishing the book was like saying good-bye to dear friends I might never see again, and indeed I had no sooner finished it that I started to read it all over again, just to be back with them.
–John Holt in Growing Without Schooling Issue 15