This weekend I found out that Lloyd Alexander died almost three years ago. I don’t know how I managed to miss that bit of news when it happened. Belatedly, I’m very sad to learn of his death. Alexander was probably best known for his five-book Chronicles of Prydain, a young-adult fantasy series based on Welsh mythology that follows Taran, an assistant pig-keeper, all the way to the Newbery Medal-winning The High King. But it wasn’t only Alexander’s books that made him special to me.
I read voraciously and without much discrimination as a kid: fiction and nonfiction in every genre, off my own bookshelf as well as my parents’. Many of my favorites from then I still revisit once a year or so, like the Chronicles of Narnia, The Phantom Tollbooth, and A Wrinkle in Time. After the last time I reread the Prydain series, I decided to force my husband to read The Book of Three. I love these wonderful works of “children’s literature” that have continued to enrapture me to this day.
The year I was 13 was probably the most difficult year of my life, for the usual reasons as well as some unusual ones. At the time I was enjoying the Xanth series by Piers Anthony, who always wrote in his author’s notes about how much time he spent responding to fan mail. And yet, for some reason, I was moved to write to Lloyd Alexander and pour out my heart to him. I still don’t know why I chose him, out of all the many authors I venerated.
Every time I wrote to Lloyd Alexander, he wrote back. They were never long letters, just typewritten notes. But they were written by him personally, and they weren’t form letters. He always responded thoughtfully, kindly, and respectfully to my probably ridiculous missives, with gentle optimism and understanding. Those letters meant the world to me at a time when my world was falling apart in some ways. Although they were brief, they displayed his true generosity of spirit, in taking the time to give a little solace to a kid who had wandered into his worlds and loved them more than her own.
I wish now that I had thought to write to him as an adult, and let him know how much our correspondence meant to me. I doubt he would have remembered me; I was probably just one of a zillion faceless fans. But I would like to have told him how very much I appreciated the time he took to connect with me.
The night after I learned about Lloyd Alexander’s death, I dreamed that a faceless someone handed me a brand new copy of Westmark, the first book in another trilogy by him. It was shiny, and had the same cover of the edition I had as a kid. In the dream, I looked down at the book, and then up at the person who gave it to me, and I smiled happily. I will always be grateful for that gift of his books, as well as for the gift of his kind compassion.
Now that Dr. Spengler’s statement is even more apt today, I’m also finding lately that my usual voracious appetite for books has waned alarmingly. Besides the usual collection of books I’ve had for years and haven’t gotten around to — you have one too, right? — I have a stack of new books I really want to read, and just don’t have the motivation to pick up right now. Richard Dawkins and Terry Pratchett are sitting around on my bedside table, wondering why they aren’t getting any action. So to speak.
The games aren’t distracting me from reading purely because I’m spending my free time on them, but rather because they deeply satisfy my craving for great storytelling. And if it weren’t for the games, I’d still have these comics that are so ridiculously good, they achieve the same thing. I was never much for them, especially the superhero genre, but in college I had to read Maus for a freshman lit class, and my views on graphic novels were blown all to hell. Later, my friend Teena, who used to work for 