Flowers for Algernon

We all have a book(s) that change our lives forever. I remember reading Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes when I was in the 4th grade. I remember Flowers for Algernon because that was the first time a book devasted my heart and turned my world upside down. Within my hands I held not a book or a story but a powerful force that took me on an emotional rollercoaster one sentence, paragraph, page by page.

I remember that was the first time I finished reading a book and weeping. I felt such a sense of loss. My eyes were opened to the true cruelty of the world and I was just a kid and I could do nothing for Charlie. You see in my mind Charlie wasn't a character but a real person and my inability to help him was my first real taste of what it meant to love and lose. I lost my innocence and I learned that life is cruel and that each step of the way we will encounter difficulties some of them even insurmountable.

After I stopped crying I realized that Charlie had maintained his beauty and I wanted to desperately capture and bottle that not for myself but for the world. I wanted the world to see, that flowers can grow next garbage. That smog can't completely obscure the clouds and and that if we stopped wishing for better weather we can catch the rainbow when the showers are done.

I have my battered copy of Flowers for Algernon still with me, and unlike my top 10 books that I read. I have not revisited Charlie, not because I feel it would cause me pain. But the 4th grader in me remembers my first earth shattering experience with a book that changed me and that will always have a special place in my heart.

http://www.amazon.com/Flowers-for-Algernon-ebook/dp/B003WJQ74E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1349924841&sr=1-1&keywords=flowers+for+algernon