Why Do Adults Reread Our Childhood Classics – And What Do We Learn About Ourselves When We Do?

It’s familiarity, true: “There is an allure to the repetition of rereading, submitting to the rhythms of a narrative, place, and characters you know well, and the familiar emotions they evoke. Rereading also has a different pace. I tear through a book on the first read, to find out what happens next, but rereading feels mellower and more leisurely, even while relearning the parts I’ve forgotten.” But then, there’s the discovery of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia – basically, there’s the risk of understanding the suck fairy.