Wednesday 1 February 2012

The Books That Made Me Fall In Love With Words


My mum and dad tell me that when I was very small, I used to come into their room into the small hours of the morning to announce I was bored. So they did what any self-respecting parents driven half-crazy by lack of sleep and middle-of-the-night demands for entertainment would do: they taught me to read.

I don’t remember this. For me, reading’s something that’s always been there, like breathing. What I do remember is the books that were more than just books – the ones that made me fall in love with words.

Tim and the Hidden People (series) by Sheila K. McCullagh

I discovered these at school when I was about 5 or 6. While everyone else was listening to the teacher reading about Roger Red Hat (another series by Sheila McCullagh) I’d sneak these off the shelves to catch up with the adventures of Tim, a boy who finds a hidden kingdom, and explores it with the help of a cat called Tobias. Often, I’d get so absorbed, I’d be completely unaware that the teacher had stopped reading and was giving me the Stare of Death™ until she came over and took the book out of my hands.

Black Harvest by Ann Pilling

By the time I got to middle school, I’d developed an appetite for ghost stories. One of my favourites was this dark and incredibly creepy book about Colin and Prill, who are dismayed when they find out their dorky cousin Oliver is coming with them on a much-anticipated holiday to Ireland. When they get there, though, Oliver turns out to be the least of their worries. Strange things start to happen – a terrible smell hangs in the air, Prill is haunted by nightmares and their baby sister falls ill. In the end it’s Oliver, the only one who seems unaffected, who discovers a connection to the Great Famine, and must fight to save them all. I remember this being the first book I ever read where, instead of seeing places I already knew in the real world, I saw places that were completely out of my own imagination, conjured up entirely by the words.


I also loved funny books, and there’s few authors funnier than Michael Rosen. This book is about Frank, who has to wait at the museum one night while his mum, who’s the cleaner there, finishes her shift. The exhibits, which include a talking doughnut-obsessed skeleton, come to life and together, they have all sorts of adventures. I got it through a book club at school and read it until it dropped to pieces.

In honour of the great man himself, I’m going to leave you with a video I discovered yesterday after a friend tweeted about it. The only word for it is… genius.

What about you? Which books made you fall in love with words and reading?

24 comments:

  1. I haven't heard of any of those books . . . actually, I don't really remember reading a lot of children's books. I must have done, of course, I just don't really remember any of them other than The Runaways series by Victor Canning, which I LOVED. After that, there was the Pan Horror Stories series and a lot of thrillers (from about 11 years old); Robert Ludlum, that sort of thing. What really set me off, though, was Stephen King. I think that's probably true for a lot of writers these days, but when I was 13, he was a massive inspiration.

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    1. Stephen King was a huge inspiration to me at that age too! I still have the copy of IT that I used my birthday book token to buy just after I turned 13. It scared me silly, but I was hooked, and have been ever since!

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  2. I was an Enid Blyton 'Malory Towers' and 'Famous Five' freak...bought them all from a local, tiny, independant book store. Little old lady kept all her childrens books out the back and let me spend hours choosing when I turned up with my £1 pocket money...enough to choose 3 or 4 books!
    Then it was horses and 'The Silver Brumby' books by Elyne Mitchell, horse mad for several early teen years!
    I love that my son's favourite books have all been Michael Morpurgo, I'd have loved them!

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    1. I loved Enid Blyton too - I used to borrow the Famous Five books from our local library (they had every single one, I seem to remember!). I haven't read the Silver Brumby books, though… might have to try them out! And Michael Morpurgo is wonderful, isn't he? He flies off the shelves at the library where I work, and rightly so.

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  3. It's interesting that you and Lisa mentioned Enid Blyton. I had a collection of all his series in French while growing up. I wonder if they're still published nowadays.
    Now all the books you've mentioned are new to me so I'm going to look them up at my local library. :)

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    1. I'm sure they're still in print - I've seen some new editions of The Secret Seven books kicking around quite recently. Enid Blyton's another very popular author at my library!

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  4. That's a funny story about your late night boredom! It reminds me of when I was about 8, my teacher told my parents I was finishing my schoolwork too quickly -- so she had me read while I waited for the next assignments! I read a lot! I haven't read your favorites -- but I am of course immediately drawn to Black Harvest because of its cover! For me, the books that influenced me the most were The Railway Children, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, and The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe. I read voraciously, constantly, and by the time I was a teenager, I was a huge mystery fan and read every single Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Perry Mason book! After that -- whatever crossed my path was fair game. Pretty much like today!

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    1. I am exactly the same. Although I do read a *lot* of YA, if a story captivates me, it doesn't matter what genre it's in.

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  5. Those books sound great Emma. I was a slow reader actually, really struggled to make sense of certain letter patterns - 'th' in particular... so, I used to ask my mum to read 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' to me night after night, and I loved comics because the pictures broke up the text and took the stress off reading. It wasn't until my mid teens that I remember reading books for myself, although I must have read things at school. I'm still a slow reader now - writing is easier because it's making words appear from my head... keeping up can be a problem ;-)

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  6. I have the same problem – I'll often write the start and the end of the sentence, then realise I've left out the middle because my brain's working faster than my fingers. :op

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  7. Isn't it lovely to think that these writers made such a difference to our lives? I'd die of happiness if someone said something I had written stayed with them as long as some of my favourites have.
    I also was an Enid Blyton girl. Apart from classic kid's literature, there weren't the same options available for me. That and no money and an OCD-obsessed mother who wouldn't let me have library books in case of the *germs*.... It's a wonder I turned out so normal,isn't it...?
    Lovely post,Emma xxx

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  8. My Dad's stories made me fall in love with words. When we ran out of Enid Blyton, he would make up his own tales of Magic Princes and Sleepy Dragons. They always had a moral and a message, and he told them with such drama and enthusiasm, I can remember the plot lines even today. It's only now, when I look back, that I realise I had the best dad EVER x

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    1. That's wonderful, Joanna - especially the way the stories are still with you today. My mum used to make up wonderful stories for me and my sister about a brother and sister called Tom and Lizzy, and even made little books about them for us. I didn't think she still had them, but a few years ago, when she and my dad were moving house, she gave them to me. I'll treasure them forever!

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  9. Thank you, Nettie! I'd love it if something I've written stayed with people as long as that too. I think that would be *the* ultimate compliment!

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  10. I go back to Black Beauty, What Katy Did and Little Women. And poetry book with a shiny red cover - I forget the name, but remember loving every word!

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    1. I loved What Katy Did and Little Women too. I definitely identified with Jo!

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  11. Am ashamed to say I haven't read any of the books in this post... My favourite author was definitely Diana Wynne Jones. But I adored The 13 Clocks by James Thurber (as you know because I bang on about it all the time), and the Molesworth books & Fattipuffs & Thinifers & Boffy & the Teacher-Eater... ooh it's all coming back to me now! How lovely to be reminded!

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  12. I've got to get hold of The 13 Clocks - I remember reading your post on someone's blog about it a while back, and thinking it sounded awesome! Oh, and I loved Molesworth too. My parents had a second-hand copy which I remember reading countless times.

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  13. I only possessed a few books when I was a child (3 Enid Blytons and 'The Little Princess', which I didn't like) and I didn't discover public libraries till I got a job in one after I graduated from uni. The first thing I did, in that job, was read my way through the entire children's section, amazed by the abundance of wonderful stories I had missed as a child.Lovely post Emma - and the best argument for looking after public libraries I've seen.

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  14. Jenny, you are so right about the importance of libraries. One of the most rewarding parts of my day job as a library assistant is seeing kids getting into reading and discovering authors who then go on to become their favourites.

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  15. Oh, there are so, so many... I'll pick one: The Horse and His Boy, be C.S. Lewis. It was on the shelf in the back of my grade three classroom, and I must have read it half a dozen times that year.

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    1. I read all the C.S. Lewis books - there was a great TV adaptation of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe too, which we watched as a family. Magical!

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  16. One of the earliest books I remember reading which I absolutely loved was 'Green Smoke' by Rosemary Manning :-)

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    1. That sounds interesting, Kate - I'll have to check it out! :)

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