{"id":46359,"date":"2013-02-06T14:25:37","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T19:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=46359"},"modified":"2013-02-06T14:12:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T19:12:45","slug":"crying-while-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Crying While Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/rackham_matchgirl1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-46360\" alt=\"rackham_matchgirl1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/rackham_matchgirl1.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/rackham_matchgirl1.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/rackham_matchgirl1-216x300.jpg 216w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a>In second grade, I first read \u201cThe Little Match Girl.\u201d To the uninitiated, this Hans Christian Andersen tale is about a beggar girl who, on Christmas Eve, warms herself by burning her matches one by one, imagining happier times with her dead grandmother by their light. In a final blaze, she imagines herself warm and happy, surrounded by love and the lights of a Christmas tree. Then we learn she\u2019s actually frozen to death.<\/p>\n<p>I was, to put it mildly, traumatized by the story. It haunted me. In the years since, I have learned that this is not an uncommon reaction; no fewer than two of my adult friends have revealed that, from time to time,\u00a0\u201cThe Little Match Girl\u201d intrudes on their thoughts and casts them into the doldrums. But as a seven-year-old, I was wholly unable to deal with my emotions. For days after hearing the story, I was quiet and withdrawn, my thoughts with the poor, cold match girl and her pathetic wares. My teacher, Mrs. Romer, noticed, and asked if everything was okay. I said yes, but one day, thinking of the tiny frozen body on the streets of wintry Copenhagen during a math lesson, I burst into uncontrollable sobs.<\/p>\n<p>The fallout was humiliating. Mrs. Romer asked me to eat lunch with her privately so we could discuss what was bothering me; who knows what trauma she thought to uncover. I was too embarrassed to admit the actual source of my anguish\u2014I knew it to be wildly babyish, as well as irrational\u2014so I quickly concocted a lame story about my brother having the flu. I guess the implication was that I was afraid for his life; in any case, it was unconvincing enough that she called my parents.<\/p>\n<p>Having learned early the dangers of giving into lit-related emotion, I was pleased to see a feature titled <a href=\"http:\/\/bookriot.com\/2013\/02\/05\/what-to-do-when-books-make-you-cry-on-public-transportation\/\" target=\"_blank\">What to Do When Books Make You Cry on Public Transportation<\/a> on BookRiot. Their advice is common sensical and wide-ranging, but does not address the concerns of younger readers. And, really, there is no time like childhood for emotionally wrenching books&mdash;if memory serves, in <em>one school year<\/em> we read <em>Bridge to Terabithia<\/em>, <em>Number the Stars<\/em>, <em>Hatchet<\/em>, and<em> Where the Red Fern Grows<\/em>. In one school year! Maybe our teachers were trying to toughen us up for public reading; personally, I think holding it together for Cormac McCarthy is a cakewalk after <em>Sounder<\/em>. \u201cThe Little Match Girl,\u201d however, should be reserved for the truly stony hearted. Or at least the over-seven set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In second grade, I first read \u201cThe Little Match Girl.\u201d To the uninitiated, this Hans Christian Andersen tale is about a beggar girl who, on Christmas Eve, warms herself by burning her matches one by one, imagining happier times with her dead grandmother by their light. In a final blaze, she imagines herself warm and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[9156,3618,4220,9969,7203],"class_list":["post-46359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-bookriot","tag-childrens-books","tag-hans-christian-andersen","tag-the-little-match-girl","tag-ya"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Crying While Reading by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 6, 2013 \u2013 In second grade, I first read \u201cThe Little Match Girl.\u201d To the uninitiated, this Hans Christian Andersen tale is about a beggar girl who, on Christmas Eve,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crying While Reading by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 6, 2013 \u2013 In second grade, I first read \u201cThe Little Match Girl.\u201d To the uninitiated, this Hans Christian Andersen tale is about a beggar girl who, on Christmas Eve,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-02-06T19:25:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/rackham_matchgirl1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Crying While Reading\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-02-06T19:25:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/\"},\"wordCount\":429,\"commentCount\":10,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/06\/crying-while-reading\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/rackham_matchgirl1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Bookriot\",\"children's books\",\"Hans Christian Andersen\",\"The Little Match Girl\",\"YA\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts &amp; 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