In the title essay of this book, her fourth collection of essays, Robinson (best known for her fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead) uses her own experience as a child reader to parallel our one-time lust for exploration and adventure in the American West. She goes on to reckon with the loss of individualism--or perhaps the loss of the celebration of individualism--and our seeming complacency with the status quo. "Everything, for all purposes, still remains to be done," she presses. We need, in short, a modern version of the American West to spur our imaginations, to motivate us to once again embrace the spirit of the individual.
Other essays range from the role of science in explaining our origins to the practical worship of capitalism in the 21st century, from our treatment of the poor to the intertwined nature of religious identity and American patriotism. Throughout, Robinson approaches these topics through the lens of her own faith and beliefs, but the lessons ultimately transcend any one religion and instead encompass our very definition of our selves, as individuals, as Americans, as readers, as members of a faith--or not, as the case may be.
It is this transcendence that makes When I Was a Child I Read Books as relevant for non-religious readers as for the observant. As individual pieces, these essays inspire a new consideration of particular issues; as a whole, they force readers to reconsider who they are--and, perhaps more importantly, why they are. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm