[trumbitta2]

Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Left around at home to indoctrinate me into "stuff" at age 8. Ended up being the first sparkle of my rebellion against "stuff".

[defrost]

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the book was "so banal that it had to be sold to adults; kids would have seen through it."

You might have fared better with Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child .. it's a cracking search for the secret of being self-winding.

http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/mouse.html

Failing that, Kleinzeit

http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/kleinz.html

[trumbitta2]

I don't care what film critic Roger Ebert wrote.

The book is a masterpiece every person should read, several times, at different ages.

[defrost]

I have read it several times at ~12, ~25, and again in my late 40s.

It has the illusion of depth and will certainly strike a chord with some, but its not altogether that great a book in the opinion of many, but exactly the kind of book that others will swear by.

[trumbitta2]

That's because most focus on what I was supposed to be indoctrinated by: Jonathan's journey and ascension.

Nobody expected I would fall in love with Fletcher, read the book as a long prologue to Fletcher's part, and make his words the hymn to my liberation: "No limits, Jonathan?".