Authors Pick Five: Aprilynne Pike

Aprilynne Pike, author of Wings and it's upcoming sequel, Spells, picks these five books as the ones most important or influential to her (complete with her explanations):

1.) The Giver, by Lois Lowry. This is my favorite book of all time. I read it about once a year and get into arguments with people about what the ending means. This book is so transporting for me. I always feel like I am right there with Jonas.

2.) Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I do not actually remember a time in my life when I had not read Matilda because my dad read it to me before I would old enough to read it properly myself. This is the book that taught me that it's okay to be smart and to love to read more than anything else. It's a book my oldest children have either read or had read to them for the same reason.

3.) The Cradle Will Fall, by Mary Higgins Clark. Ahh, my first MHC book! This is the first real adult book I ever read, at age twelve, and I read it several times a year till I was a junior in high school or so. Not only did I love the story, I was also fascinated by the childbirth aspect of it, which I suspect played a part in me eventually being a doula.

4.) Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. I can't not mention this book. Reading Twilight was a transformative experience for me. This was the kind of book I really wanted to read! And in turn, it became the kind of book I wanted to write. It's popularity aside, I just wanted to write a book with a girl I could relate to, and guy I could secretly swoon over, and a world that made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, it really did exist.

5.) The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I'm cheating here as this is technically more than one book.:) Along with the Roald Dahl books, these are the books I remember my dad reading aloud to me at night. For years, any time anyone would ask me my favorite book, it would be whichever Narnia book we were reading at the time. I learned to love reading from Narnia and that is a gift of greater worth than I can say.

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Ah.... don't you just love those fun book memories!

If you are a fan of the teen supernatural type books, you really must check out Aprilynne Pike's debut novel, Wings. (Here's my review if you missed it last year.) The paperback version comes out on April 6, followed by the release of the sequel, Spells, on May 4. I really look forward to seeing where this story goes. So fun! Oh, and Disney bought the rights for the movie. How cool is that?

For more on Aprilynne, here's her blog.

And here's her official website, which includes her very own storybook story.