I’m starting a new post idea called Books that Shaped Us, where we can talk about those books which influenced us most in childhood and what we remember of them.
This idea started a few weekends ago when my husband and I went for a family visit to my parents’ house. In digging through the basement (for some unfathomable reason), we stumbled upon an old plastic bin full of the books I owned in childhood. There must have been upwards of three hundred. I grabbed the ones I remember with the most fondness and brought them to my house, where they shall now live in dignity and honor on a favorite bookshelf. Here are three of them to start off this post.
Short and Shivery, by Robert D. San Souci and Katherine Coville
This grim little volume is the perfect way to start the October season. As a child, I adored scary stories of the supernatural. Adored them so much, in fact, that I became desensitized by the time I was about five. It was difficult to find a children’s ghost story book scary enough for me (this was not, by the way, the case with television; I remember some episodes of Ghost Busters that kept me up nights). But Short and Shivery was a delightful collection of ghost stories from many different countries, and as it was a middle-grade reading level, the spook tales in it actually satisfied my seven-year-old self. One story in particular, “The Cegua,” intrigued me. It’s a Hispanic tale about a dude who rides his horse home after over-indulging at the local saloon, and picks up a beautiful girl who turns into a horse-headed skeleton and tries to kill him. Yeah. This is what I was reading at seven. There was also the story of “Tailypo” from the Virginia hills, in which an old man in a cottage mistreats a visiting monkey/bobcat thing and pays dearly for it.
Tales from the Arabian Nights by Peter Oliver and Tessa Hamilton: This volume was my first acquaintance with most of the more popular “Arabian Nights” stories. I knew of Aladdin from this book before he became a Disney prince. Ali Baba and his 40 thieves made their first appearance in my life through these pages. Then there were the more obscure Sinbad tales (did you ever realize how many Sinbad stories there are?), a turtle princess story, and “The Magic Horse.” The thing I remember most vividly about this book was the beautiful illustrations. Every page was covered with exotic decorations and clothing. Every princess had hair so black it shone blue-white, and clothes that hit every stop on the rainbow spectrum. Every story involved jewels somehow, and they sparkled so on the page I wanted to grab a handful of them. I remember as a five-year-old having the urge to eat them. :/ A confusing memory in retrospect.
The Great Dinosaur Atlas illustrated by Giuliano Fornari
By the age of 5, I could pronounce most of the dinosaur names. Monoclonius and struthiomimus were my favorites (and yes, I pronounced them correctly and still can: MON-o-CLONE-ee-us and STREW-thee-oh-MIM-us). This dinosaur atlas fed my already growing obsession with all things terrible lizard, and this hobby impacted my thinking for a great number of formative years. I used to be really up on the latest dino research in the late 80s and early 90s, but my knowledge has fallen sadly by the wayside in recent decades. The thing I remember most vividly about this book is that reading it introduced me, for the first time, to the paradox between the book of Genesis and scientific findings about the origins of the world. I encountered that heady theological problem at age seven or eight.
Which books shaped your mind in early childhood? What do you remember about them? How have they impacted your thinking in a permanent way?
RHDavis
I didn’t actually read a lot until around 6th grade. Then I read lots. But before I read a lot I did have some favorite books that I was obsessed with. Dangerous Island was a book about some kids who built a raft and got sucked out to sea and washed up on a rocky island that had a cave in it or something and maybe a giant turtle? They had to survive on their own, eat what they found, aka — no adults. That was a favorite kink of mine as a kid. It is blurry now, but I looooved it. I even dreamed I was in a parked car by the water and got swept away. The other book I really liked was My Side of the Mountain. I think most people have read that one. Besides those books I was obsessed a set of 1940s childrens readers called Streets and Roads and More Streets and Roads. They had awesome art and was full of short stories with a lot of morals and death and tricksters in them.
The first fantasy book I read on my own (my dad read me the Shannara books to me out loud so those don’t count) was Blue Moon Rising by Simon Green which was a classic quest based fantasy book, but had a snarky princess in it and a dragon that collected butterflies. It was my sister’s book and I reread it so many times she just gave it to me because I destroyed the cover. That was the last book I destroyed. Jilly put me through book-holding boot camp after that and now my books forever look fresh out of the store.
Ahh, so many childhood book memories! Which to choose? In no particular order:
1) Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson. The first book I remember having to have my mom read aloud to me, and then I continued to read myself, over and over again. I was completely enthralled, I played Treasure Island make believe; it forever shaped how I perceive engaging with a story.
2) The Hobbit. Duh.
3) The Song of the Lioness series, Tamora Pierce. Aside from Tolkien, no other author’s had a bigger influence on my childhood and my life. This woman made me a feminist, and showed me that yes, girls can be heroes and have adventures.
4) Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones. Favorite book of all time by favorite author of all time. Timeless.
5) Jane Eyre. Of course.
6) Anne of Green Gables. Oh, *Anne.*
7) To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
8) Dracula, Bram Stoker. An odd choice, but I devoured it and it scared me out of my mind and I loved it. I was reading supernatural horror stories when I was still in single digits; another way we’re eerily alike. 🙂
9) Anything by Robin McKinley. Beauty? Check. The Blue Sword? Check. Hero and the Crown? You get the idea. And I still read anything she writes with utter devotion today.
10) Winnie the Pooh, another “of course.”
I just read some Song of the Lioness stuff. I would have loved it as a kid, but somehow never found it until adulthood. I only read the first two though.
Dracula is one of those books that is etched in my memory and impacted me in a big way, but as an adult. I read it in my dorm room on a grim and chilly evening when everyone else had already left for spring break and the dorm was empty. Talk about giving yourself the creeps. I will never forget that evening as long as I live.