Ages when I "discovered" my favorite authors

Andre Norton 

Age 10-11 "Warlock of the Witchworld"

My oldest big brother brought home a coverless used paperback copy. My introduction to adult Fantasy. Magic as personal, unique, familial legacy, and frightening. The rest is history... 

Lois Duncan

Age 12 "A Gift of Magic"

I lost a lot of Summertime as a kid because I was always stuck in Summer School(which is also a favorite 80s movie of mine. My first film showing a pregnant teen and the storyline NOT punishing her for that). I found this book on the school library spinner rack(found so many favorites over the years on the spinner rack). The cover was a touched-up photograph of an eerie-looking pre-teen white girl. Her eyes aglow while she sat crouched in an easy chair, her fingers digging into its arms while she stared at the viewer. Behind her was another photo of a younger girl seemingly floating in shades of blue. The story was as surreal and real as a story could get about a regular girl inheriting her matriarchal line's ability to telepathy, telekinesis, and prescience.

Anne McCaffrey 

Age 20 "The Rowan"

Now in the realm of far-future SF with a psychic woman protagonist(thanks to A Gift of Magic) I started to relish reading about. This title was the first in a family drama/space opera series. The protagonist is in blue clothing and seat on a seat likened to a throne, appearing as regal as any queen. An orphan, she is considered one of the most powerful psychics in human-inhabited space. She sits straight with her ankles crossed, her arms straight with her fingertips on her seat's arms. She is flanked by a smallish(serval-size?) snow leopard-like domesticated cat. More psychic abilities and alien-implied invasions of the galaxy. The first story where the protagonist and her intended get together, she gets pregnant, and they don't immediately marry(they marry in the second book when she's pregnant with their third child). That blew my mind and I appreciated this subplot point. 

Ursula K. le Guin

Age 23(?) "Catwings Returns"

I know I read this story late in my local library, not even realizing it was a series. It had cats with bird wings born to a regular black cat mama. The cats flying through a city felt very real to me and delighted me that another writer could make a story about a cat character that could fly. Disclaimer: My first character I made up as a kid was a brown and white cat with bat wings I called Cat the Bat.😊😄 I worked as a substitute teacher at the time.

RIP Lois Duncan

     Last week Wednesday, June 15, 2016 an important literary figure died. Her name was Lois Duncan, and she was important in my life. Writers are often asked who are the people that influenced them, and no self-respecting writer can remember all those inspiring titles or even the authors that penned them. Unfortunately, it is often when such an influential writer dies that the living, whether they also became writers or went into other professions, that we suddenly remember what such a personage did for us.

     Let me give a scenario, despite others' ideas about me, I was a poor student while in grade school. Often sickly, I would miss enough days that would put me behind certain subjects. Therefore, from 6th grade to 10th grade (with at least two summers I did well enough), I was in summer school. In 1986, I had to attend summer school (sequentially) for the first time. Because it was a private school tied in with a religious denomination, this it did not offer a summer school program, and therefore, I had to attend a middle school near the elementary school where my mom taught.

     This particular middle school was in a rough neighborhood and had some rough children. I understood the work because it was not sixth-grade but actually 4-5th level. I also did not dress as my classmates did. This wasn't my neighborhood. I didn't speak like them. My parents made sure I always had $2. My classmates hated me for this. I was bullied every day. Eventually, our class went on the prerequisite trip to the school library. I was in heaven. At this time, maybe others have noticed this, but, a lot of YA (Young Adult) novel front covers often had photographs with models posing a scene from the story, or, realistic paintings. Mostly, though, I noticed they used real people.

     Paperbacks were often on spinning racks then and the school libraries were no exception. One particular cover struck me with its blonde teen girl, sitting in an armchair with her whole body curled in it. Her unnerving stare at the reader and a ghostly image of a little girl in blue floating behind her.

From Jezebel.com 

     This looks really cool! I thought and immediately rushed to the check-out desk. I received snide remarks and under-the-breath "nerd" comments, but I didn't care.
I began to read the novel "A Gift of Magic" and was sucked in by Duncan's use of flashback, memory, and especially how her protagonist, a teenage girl with psychic abilities navigated her life. Often interested in the supernatural growing up, psychic phenomenon has often fascinated me. I credit "A Gift of Magic" for my first time reading about psychic powers. And though I have since digested other stories dealing with this subject, and perhaps, have dealt with it better, Duncan's "A Gift of Magic" was sincere, non-condescending, and a good read during a difficult moment in my childhood that I can't recommend it enough.

RIP YA Novelist Lois Duncan

Author Lois Duncan died yesterday at the age of 82. Her books changed me while I was in sixth grade and I read her all during middle school. My first book from her "A Gift of Magic" (6th grade summer school) made a world of psychic phenomenon so real and powerful that I stopped feeling alone. It's still such an important book I bought a library copy some weeks ago. Once in middle school, I read other Duncan books, including the phenomenal "Killing Mr.Griffin". The title 'queen of teen suspense' is right! Long live the queen! I will be posting more about Ms. Duncan.