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readergirlz is a literacy and social media project for teens, awarded the National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading Prize. The rgz blog serves as a depot for news and YA reviews from industry professionals and teens. As volunteers return full force to their own YA writing, the organization continues to hold one initiative a year to impact teen literacy. All are welcome to "like" us on Facebook!

Monday, December 7, 2009

December: Following Your Parents' Footsteps

Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce

Like father, like daughter: In Trickster's Choice, Aly wants nothing more than to be a spy, and she's learned a great deal from her father's work. Do you hope to follow in the footsteps of either of your parents? What makes you want to pursue a career similar to that of your mom or dad?

10 comments:

Little Willow said...

Though I am pursuing a career far different from my mother's, we share a similar work ethic, drive, and determination.

Lucy Green and Fancy Day said...

Yes, I agree Little Willow. I am not following the careers of my parents but we share the same work ethics. I have also learnt a lot about computers because of their work which will be a great help to me in the future.

Melissa Walker said...

I didn't follow my parents' careers, but I did learn to dream big from both of them!

Shelf Elf said...

I had never planned to follow in my parents' footsteps, but they're both teachers and now I am too. Guess there was no escape! :)

Lorie Ann Grover said...

I followed my mom's love of art and literature. It was a natural draw!

Tamora Pierce said...

My dad wanted to write and did write a little--he had a couple of poems published in the local paper when he was younger. He just couldn't stand sit at a desk. If he wasn't outdoors or doing something like shop work up until his last decade, he got grumpy. Still, he was the best storyteller I knew in a family of them. He not only made the family stories live, but he talked about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War as if he'd been there and known the men who fought. He made history real. He was the one who urged me to write.

My birth mother wasn't big on writing, particularly my writing, but she was a reader, an intellectual, and a feminist. She left her mark very plainly on me!

In the medieval world, which is what I base both my Tortall and my Circle universes on, it was far more common for children to take up their parents' work. If they didn't, their parents usually found a trade for them if they could afford the fee to get a master to take their child on as an apprentice. But farm families could use most of their kids at home, and did. (Yeah, my dad passed his love of history on to me, too, though my favorite Civil War generals and authors weren't the same as his!)

Lorie Ann Grover said...

Yes, the medieval work did lock you in more tightly, right?

Live it up, rgz, and reach to fulfill your own passions. And thank those who influence you along the way.

Lucy Green and Fancy Day said...

Yes that is true. It was a lot safer for the children to follow their parents because it ensured that they had a livelihood. It also meant that the 'family business' continued and the parents had help especially in their old age.

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