Revisiting Childhood Favourites
Last year I reported that I had re-read Norton Juster's wonderful
The Phantom Tollbooth and Philippa Pearce's A Dog So Small, two favourite books from my childhood. This week I am going to re-read Clive King's Stig of the Dump for the first time in years, and I’ve got Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams on my reservations list too. Interestingly enough, the other day someone posted a link to the Child_Lit discussion list, of Peter Sagal's own account of reading The Phantom Tollbooth to his children and how much he enjoyed/hated it (he experienced both emotions). And I wondered whether anyone else had re-read any favourite childhood books recently, and how you got on ?
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There’s a spoilerish review of Jonathan Stroud’s The Leap over on the Scholar'’s Blog Spoiler Zone.
5 comments:
I recently re-read Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery. All of her books and short stories are on my bookshelf; she is my favorite childhood author. I enjoyed it because I love Emily, but sometimes it is hard re-reading a childhood favorite as an adult because you are no longer experiencing the same beautiful innocence as you did when you first read it!
Oh, I adore A Dog So Small, much more than Tom's Midnight Garden, as a matter of fact. But that's not answering your question :) As it happens, I recently re-read Cathering Storr's Thursday, which has been a favourite of mine since childhood (or at least early teenhood), and Elizabeth Goudge's A Little White Horse and found them every bit as good as I remembered them. In fact, I enjoyed Thursday MORE because as an adult I could appreciate just how well written it was - something that probably affected me subliminally then but is nice to be aware of now.
Actually I re-read things all the time, anyway, but these seemed pertinent to your question :)
Thanks ladies. It was interesting to read your comments. Debbie, I'm a big re-reader too, but those particular books I'd gone for a good many years (20+) without ever re-reading them and therefore it's interesting (to me at least) to see if they match up to my memories of them. I certainly found A Dog So Small every bit as moving as when I read it as a child, moreso probably since I'm reading it with an adult's understanding and experiences; and The Phantom Tollbooth was every bit as imaginative as I recalled !
I recently re-read Elizabeth Enright's The Four-Story Mistake, and I thought that it held up amazingly well. This isn't always the case, of course, but I still cry every time I read Anne of Green Gables, too.
I'm glad that you enjoyed the books Jen. I must admit that I approach childhood favourites with some qualms over whether they will live up to my memories of them - but so far, so good !
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