Revisiting childhood reads

I've been thinking about books that I enjoyed reading in my early teenage years. I've decided to go back and read those books again (as a mother in my thirties), and see if I enjoy them as much now as I did then. Also, I wanted to note any subtleties that I most likely missed back then.

Today, I reread Gary Paulsen's The Night the White Deer Died, a YA novel published in 1978. I read it in 1994 (as a thirteen-year-old). Here is a synopsis on the back of the Random House edition:

    An Indian brave stands poised to shoot a white deer drinking from a pool of water in the moonlight. It is only a dream--a recurring nightmare that haunts fifteen-year-old Janet Carson--but it is a dream that will change her life forever.
    
    Janet, one of the few Anglo teens in the New Mexico art colony where she lives with her mother, feels isolated and alone. For some reason, she is drawn to Billy Honcho, an old, alcoholic Indian who begs for money from her. As they get to know each other, the meaning of Janet's nightmare grows clear, and Billy becomes the brave in her dream.

When I read this novel as a kid, I don't remember being repelled by the fact that a fifteen-year-old girl ends up falling in love (with the idea of) a fifty-something year old man. It doesn't so much repel me now as it shocks me that it didn't repel me back then. I suppose the main idea of the novel is accepting that which seems unacceptable, but I can see how it could come across as borderline pedophilic...even though Billy, the older man in the novel, never physically touches Janet, it seems odd that Janet's mother allows her to be courted by a man of that age (and an alcoholic). I'm not sure how the modern publishing world would view this book, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't make it on the shelves in 2012.

I haven't read any of Paulsen's other YA books, but I plan to in the future. He has won the Newberry Honor Medal for three of his books, among other honors.

Next up on my list of YA books from my teenage years are two of Scott O'Dell's books: Sing Down the Moon and Island of the Blue Dolphins, Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, and I'm still working my way through Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.