Tuesday 19 August 2014

Where The Very Hungry Caterpillars Are!




My two young nephews are just at the age of discovering reading for themselves. As much as it's a pleasure to have an adult read to you as a child, the joy of discovering stories for yourself is a huge step and it's fascinating to watch the boys pick up a book and slowly lose themselves in the story, wide eyed and full of determined concentration. This is still new to them after all, so every word is important and must be afforded all due consideration.

There are many activities we throw ourselves into as children that we naturally lose interest in, forget or that become unacceptable as we reach adulthood. Playing with toys, watching cartoons, climbing trees or running around waving our hands in the air and screaming at full volume are rarely listed as pastimes on the average Curriculum Vitae. (Pity... I'd hire that person).

But reading is one activity that stays with us through the years. From 3 years to 103 years. From The Very Hungry Caterpillar to War & Peace. So those very early experiences are for many the start of a lifelong passion. Reading with the boys has got me thinking of the very first books I remember reading as a kid.


Obviously our friend the Hungry Caterpillar was around. Didn't every kid have a copy of that? It seems that a nursery or playroom wasn't complete without the little green and red chap being present. And next to it were probably well thumbed copies of the Dr. Zeus classics The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, which were equally as omnipresent.

The other early years book that I remember well is Meg & Mog. About a haphazard witch, her black & white cat and their friend, Owl. Despite being a favourite in our house, I wasn't sure that the Meg & Mog series from the 70s was as well known as some others, but I've just looked and found out there was a relatively recent TV series with Avril Lavigne voicing Meg. Who'da thunk it?






Certainly more universally popular were the Mr Men and Beatrix Potter books, both of which came with handy illustrations of the other books in the series to enable us to pester our parents for the next book whilst pointing eagerly at the back cover to illustrate the seriousness of the situation! - "I simply must have the Mr. Tickle book!"




My Favourite Beatrix Potter book, bizarrely for a young boy who liked climbing trees and getting tremendously muddy, was not the naughty Peter Rabbit, but Mrs Tiggywinkle, who preferred darning lace hankies. I think the reason I liked it was the ending in which the young girl turned away from the strange, kind, but bizarrely prickly old woman with a long nose, who had been helping her find her hankie, only to discover a small hedgehog scampering away when she turned back. It wasn't just a story of an anthropomorphic small animal; there was definitely something a bit weird going on and the strangeness of the situation appealed to me.  




But without doubt my favourite early years book was Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are", a book about a young boy transporting himself to another world through imagination alone, the very essence of reading. Just 338 words long, but with truly memorable illustrations, the book sparked my imagination and has become a cult classic, even spawning collectable toys and an excellent movie. 


But the Wild Things cried "Oh, please don't go. We'll eat you up, we love you so!"


After reading by yourself, the next big step is the move away from illustrated books to pure prose, which is a thrillingly adult step at the time. As many kids in the 80s will have done I took this step via certain Enid Blyton books amongst others. I was never much of a fan of the Secret Seven or Famous Five, possibly due to a youthful and subconscious fear of alliteration, and I thoroughly disliked the Noddy books. 



  

But I did rather enjoy the Enchanted Wood and Magic Faraway Tree. I remember the angst whenever one of the characters became stuck in one of the "Lands" at the top of the tree as it cycled around and of course the sniggers that dutifully followed any mention of the characters Dick and Fanny, (now apparently changed to Rick and Frannie in modern versions).

But my favourite pre-teen author was Roald Dahl. His stories, along with the wonderful illustrations by Quentin Blake were considered by young master Hartley to be the height of sophistication, mainly because my Mother's collection of books also contained one of Dahl's adult fiction books, I believe it was "Henry Sugar", so I thought that if it was good enough for the adults in my life, it was good enough for me.




I loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass ElevatorThe BFG and James & the Giant Peach, but the most read of his books was certainly Fantastic Mr Fox, though I always remember feeling terribly sad when Mr Fox lost his tail. But I think Danny the Champion of the World was the book that made the biggest impression on me at the time, seeming less like a children's book and more like a step away from the Enid Blyton type stories.

As with adult literature, the number of early years and pre-teen books has exploded recently, the independent publishers and electronic channels making just as much of a splash in this market as any other, and I've seen some wonderful examples like The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet and Goodnight Little Monster. But the books above are some of the ones that made the biggest impact on me as a child and I'm glad to see some of them are still being enjoyed today. Only last week I was showing the two nephews Beatrix Potter books on my tablet. Some things change... others stay the same.

Most of the books above have been reprinted many times, but the covers I've used are the ones I remember from my books during the 70s and 80s.

Which were your favourite children's books?

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