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Share Your Childhood Favorite

Wind in the WillowsA 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”

  1. Bridge to Ter­abithia. That was the book that showed me sto­ries are pow­er­ful. I cry, every time!

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  2. 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…

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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.

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  5. 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.

    Reply

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