Remember how reading was when you were a kid? Back when you weren't really concerned with literary merit as such, or things like "themes" or "educational value" or whether people on the bus thought you looked smart reading them?
Remember when reading was just pure, unadulterated AWESOME?
Here are some of the books that contributed to my lifelong love of bookworming, and which stick with me to this day.
The Egypt Game - Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Classified by my childhood self (and possibly my current self) as The Best Book EVAR. Friendship, sneaking around behind the backs of grown-ups, super-elaborate, super-exotic made-up Egyptian worlds, creepy mystery, and just enough real-life danger to make it a bit more weighty. Best Scholastic Book Fair purchase my mamabear ever made.
Indian Captive - Lois Lenski
I remember the first time I read this, I got ultra-indignant that it contained the heavy subject matter it does - the protagonist’s family is murdered and she is taken captive in a Seneca raid - and pouted for about ten minutes before reading on. Please understand, I was the kid who got pissed off at Bambi for making me cry and refused to ever watch it again. That said, I read on and probably read Indian Captive about seven times over the course of one summer. Probably also the first book I read in my life that introduced moral ambiguity!
The Balloon Tree - Phoebe Gilman
Princess Leora loves balloons. Her father, the king, goes out of town for a tournament. He tells her if anything goes wrong, she must release her thousands of balloons into the sky, and the instant he sees them, he will come back. Of course, her evil uncle (who I am 99% sure is 100% based on the man in the Arnolfini wedding portrait!) immediately goes about popping all the balloons in the kingdom so he can do some serious usurping. The way evil uncles do. Too much pretty to even handle.
The Nancy Drew Mysteries - Carolyn Keene
I defy you to not love Nancy Drew, even if you do so ironically. She’s all spunky and good looking and smart and her best friends are an overcautious, super-pretty chubby girl named Bess and an awesome ultra-tomboy named George. Never mind that if “to adventure” were a verb, Nancy would obviously be able to adventure circles around her super-lame boyfriend, the awesomely-named Ned Nickerson. Whenever I re-read these, even though the formulas and catchwords used over and over are really obvious, they make me smile. “Titian-haired” is definitely my favourite, despite the fact that I am still only about 80% confident in my conclusion that it means strawberry-blonde.
The Outsiders - S.E Hinton
A quick read, with some super-dated and slightly-awkward slang (“Greasers” I get, but.. “Socs?”) but also, ultimately, an excellent teenhood tearjerker. Also introduced me to Robert Frost.
Stay gold, Ponyboy.
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Read it. And then try to find the super-ancient 1949 movie version with Margaret O’Brien. Actually, this book’s so viscerally a part of my childhood that I don’t think I can actually say anything objective about it. It’s wonderful. It's all windswept moors, tragic family secrets, mysterious crying sounds from hidden rooms. Also, flowers.
The Castle in the Attic & The Battle for the Castle - Elizabeth Winthrop
Using a two-sided magic token, William shrinks himself to the size of the little figurines that come with the model castle given to him by his old nanny. He befriends a miniature knight with major short-man syndrome, and they have adventures. There is an evil magician. In the sequel, The Battle for the Castle, William returns and this time there are also giant terrifying rats that definitely gave me nightmares.
Redwall - Brian Jacques
Brian Jacques wrote Redwall to be read to blind children. Probably the first truly imagery-rich book I made it through as a kid, and definitely the first “grown-up sized” book. Redwall is a little peace-loving, religiously-ambiguous abbey inhabited by assorted mice, voles, moles, hedgehogs, and the like. It comes under attack by a gigantic rat (!!!) known as Cluny the Scourge, and his wicked army of less-cuddly rodents like ferrets, rats and weasels. A brave little mouse named Matthias gets to prove his heroism. It has its cutesy moments, but despite the cute little animals, it’s less Disney and more Watership Down + Lord of the Rings. There are swords.
Sideways Stories from Wayside School - Louis Sachar
These short stories run the gamut from hilarious to desperately creepy. Not to bring up rats again, but the story that sticks out most vividly in my memory, and I am not sure whether it’s from this collection or its sequel, is about a rat. Basically there is a new student in the class, who shows up in a big raincoat. The teacher asks the student to take the raincoat off so they can see his/her face. Off comes the raincoat. Underneath is another raincoat. This happens a five or six more times, and the student appears smaller and smaller and there is definitely a smell. Anyway, they get to the last raincoat, the student is encouraged to take it off, and... Turns out to be a dead rat. Yes, the new student is a dead rat.
How about? What got you into reading? What books from your childhood inspired or scarred you a little for life?
0 comments:
Post a Comment