When I was a teen, I sometimes accompanied my mother and grandmother on their Saturday antique shopping trips. On this particular outing we traveled to a small nearby town that had several antique stores.  While I didn’t really care about antiques, it was always a fun day with them and I often came home with a treasure or two of my own; usually books, but sometimes little china figurines of animals or some other random thing that caught my eye.

On this particular day what caught my eye was a paperback book published by Scholastic Book Services of “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë. The inside first page is stamped with Feb 1 1979 and a penciled in 15¢. I started reading it in the car on the way home.

I’ve probably read this book at least a half dozen times over the years and I still have that original little paperback that I picked up way back in 1979.  I re- read it again in May of 2021 and here is a short list of reasons why it might just be a good read for you too:

• This book is copyrighted 1847 and it is still being read.  That kind of lasting interest is worth investigating if you haven’t done so yet.
• Even when Jane is a young girl, she knows her own mind and makes judgements and decisions based on her own inner compass.
• Jane’s time at Lowood Institution and the influential friends and ideas she met with there.  Followed by her time at Thornfield and how that environment helped to awaken her passions and finally her adventures in the village of Morton where she found friends, family and community in a whole new way.
• The mystery and final resolution of her father’s family.
• The secrets and mysteries of Thornfield.
• Romance!
• Charlotte Brontë’s descriptions of people and places are exquisite.
• Jane idolizes and respects St. John to the point of physical exhaustion and over reaching her abilities. And yet, just as when she was a child, Jane knows her own mind and heart and refuses to compromise her principles.