A good friend of mine—a highly educated man in his seventies—was talking about e‑books. “I use them for only one purpose,” he said. “I have loaded my reader with the books I read when I was a boy—The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Deerslayer, and the like. The children’s books of my youth. When I wake at night, which, when you get to my age, happens with some frequency, I read these old books. I learn what I was, and how I became who I am.”
I suspect that my friend also—in the cocoon of his night—becomes young again.
We often talk about the impact children’s books have on contemporary young people. Perhaps there is a whole other way of looking at these books. As the population ages, young people’s literature can be a way of recapturing one’s own childhood. If one is a life-long reader, there will be some book or books that remain in hearts and heads, an emotional and literary Garden of Eden.
For me, a re-reading of The Wind in the Willows never fails to make me smile, laugh, and to marvel at the brilliance of the writing. Not so much a Fountain of Youth, as a Fountain of Ever Renewing Story.
What is your book?
12 thoughts on “Share Your Childhood Favorite”
City of Light, City of Dark!
Bridge to Terabithia. That was the book that showed me stories are powerful. I cry, every time!
The Secret Garden.
C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series
I tried really hard to think of a different book that influenced me in my youth, but I keep going back to, “True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.” I get all giddy just thinking about reading it (5th time?). In my later years (high school), I developed a love for “Of Mice and Men,” but yours was first. Thank you.
The funny thing was that I only picked up your book because I was trying to read ALL of the Newbery award winning books in middle school and “Story of Mankind,” was WAY too dry for my next read. It was your book that helped move me out of reading only Goosebumps…
Charlotte’s Web
A book that I loved as a kid and will still read as an adult is “Something Upstairs”. When I was young I had a hard time reading, and it was a book that really got me into mysteries.
Winnie the Pooh and A Wrinkle in Time.….
Winnie-the-Pooh and Anne of Green Gables for me!
LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott, a book I can read over and over again.
The Little Prince, which is a book for all ages. It made me thoughtful at the age of seven.
Some of the others are already mentioned above.
I love all these replies. I truly believe the book(s) you read when young can and do stay with you for the rest of your life.