And my now husband, then crush, played Nick Bottom who Titania falls in love with (albeit under the influence of a love potion, but still). It’s probably because I was in an amateur acting group in my late teens/early twenties, and I played the part of Titania when we played AMND. That being said, I prefer the comedies over the tragedies, so Hamlet is not my favorite Shakespeare play. Tell me you love Shakespeare without telling me you love Shakespeare. Because what better way is there to spend a lazy Saturday (the day I’m writing this post) than with a good poetry book?Ī Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare In fact, I think I’ll go find my copy and re-read them right now. It’s about the woman he called Lesbia in his poems, who really was a married woman named Clodia, and the poems about her display a range of emotions from tender to sad to sarcastic as their relationship starts out happily then fizzles out and they fall out of love.

The short poem above is my favorite and I can recite it in Latin. As someone who already read poetry at this age, I fell head over heels in love with classical Roman poetry. She loved it so much that she made me love it, too. She loved Latin and old Roman history with a passion I envied as a teenager. It was one of my favorite subjects, taught by one of my favorite teachers ever.

And that’s why I’ll read this book to my darling grandbaby when she gets a little older. If that isn’t the best kind of role model any young girl can have, I don’t know what is. He’s the one who crumbles first, he’s the one who comes to her and asks her forgiveness, not the 12-ish year old girl. She stands up for what’s right, she sides with Birk when her father forces her hand, and she doesn’t give up.

She befriends Birk, the son of her father’s arch enemy, she knows right from wrong and isn’t afraid to speak up when she learns that her father actually steals stuff for a living, and she doesn’t hesitate to stand up to him when push comes to shove. I’ve read it as an adult, too, and I still love it. This book was released when I was nine and can’t even guess how many times I’ve read it. I’ve read most of her books, and while I love Pippi, I love Ronja more. Soon after Ronia and Birk become friends the worst quarrel ever between the rivals bands erupts, and Ronia and Birk are right in the middle.Īs a Swedish person, I’ve grown up on a steady diet of Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Longstocking, who’s probably our most famous author. Then one day Ronia meets Birk, the son of Matt’s arch-enemy. Soon Ronia learns to dance and yell with the robbers, but it is alone in the forest that she feels truly at home. On the night Ronia was born, a thunderstorm raged over the mountain, but in Matt’s castle and among his band of robbers there was only joy - for Matt now had a spirited little black-haired daughter.

Always You by Nell Iris