By Emma Blackwood

There is no doubt that isolation has everyone picking up various new hobbies, from sewing and cooking to painting and playing instruments. Binge-watching shows is always at the top of the list for most people as well, but I’d like to offer an unironic alternative: reread your favorite books from Middle School. 

You may be thinking, “Why would I do that, when I can revisit my favorite shows again? It’s easier and still takes my mind off of our bleak current situation.” While watching Netflix requires less effort than reading, I would argue that it isn’t difficult to read books that are meant for a 5th Grade audience. It’s also important to remember that you’re no longer reading to complete a summer book list or write an analytical essay; you can just enjoy an action-packed plot and characters that are likable, for the first time in years. Reading with no assignments attached is a form of entertainment that is genuinely so difficult to remember, so when is a better time to rediscover it than when you can’t leave the house?

When asked about why he was rereading the Percy Jackson series, Spencer Billings (‘21) said,  “it’s comforting to read something that reminds me that this isn’t the norm. It’s nice to escape from everything right now, it also reminds me of when I was younger, and there wasn’t as much stress in my life.”  Many of the book series that were popular in Lower and Middle School were dystopian and/or fantasy, and that kind of drastic escapism is perfect for taking your mind off of a global pandemic. Whether it be Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, these books hold sentimental value for many people of varying ages.

More than half of young adult fiction readers are adults, and it’s been that way for a while. When Harry Potter was first printed in the UK, two different covers were printed: one for adults and one for children. This was in order to encourage those out of middle school to read the series without the fear of being self-conscious. Now, with popular young adult authors like John Green and Angie Thomas regularly writing books specifically geared towards young adults, it’s not surprising that those novels regularly captivate older audiences. “These books are about coming of age, and we’re still coming of age,” writes Caroline Kitchener in “Why So Many Adults Love Young-Adult Literature,” in The Atlantic.

Writer, professor, and editor Roxane Gay was thirty-three when The Hunger Games, the first book in Suzanne Collins’s trilogy, was published. In 2014, Gay published her essay “What We Hunger For” in her collection of essays Bad Feminist. Personally, I never became fully invested in The Hunger Games, but Gay’s essay made me consider revisiting the books. Gay remarks,

“I love that a young woman character is fierce and strong but human in ways I find believable, relatable. Katniss is clearly a heroine, but a heroine with issues. She intrigues me because she never seems to know her own strength. She isn’t blandly insecure the way girls are often forced to be in fiction. She is brave but flawed.” 

While this analysis is about The Hunger Games specifically, it applies to almost all of our favorite young adult fiction. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Katniss Everdeen, Tris Prior, and so many characters like them captivated us as children and tweens because they exhibited the kind of strength we felt we had, only in much more interesting circumstances. 

Rereading these books may bring back the occasional nauseating memory of Middle School, but you won’t be thinking about how long you’ve been stuck inside. Instead, you can fall back in love with the stories that shaped us and the characters we looked up to. As young adults, we had the freedom to seek out exciting plots and happy endings without being judged, and now that we’re stuck in isolation, we have that freedom again.

Featured image credit: Sam Greenhalgh.