Think back to your childhood. What books did you read, or were read to you, that made you who you are today? What was special about them? Have you re-read them since? Do they still have that same effect on you? If you could buy a young friend or relative one book from your childhood, what would it be?
The truth is, I don’t remember
Goodnight Moon
from my childhood, but from my oldest son’s. But like the Dr. Seuss books, Goodnight Moon never gets old, and when he demanded a half dozen books, I saved it for last.
Of course, in the being read to years (I learned to read at four, so they were too short), I did love the Dr. Seuss books, my absolute favorites being Green Eggs and Ham
, The Cat in the Hat,
and Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?
Once I was able to read on my own, several books became my constant re-reading companions. I re-read the
Diary of Anne Frank
at least half a dozen times by the times I was ten, and on that same note,
North to Freedom
, (it has been republished as
I am David
) about a boy who escapes from a concentration camp, was another favorite.
Of course, I loved Alice in Wonderland 
and Through the Looking Glass
, and the Frank L Baum Oz
books, but my favorite Oz book was written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, called The Purple Prince of Oz
. I discovered science fiction in fifth grade, delving into Battle for the Planet of the Apes
, (I had no idea until just now that David Gerrold
wrote it) and the other books in that fine series.
I also discovered the Encyclopedia Brown
books, the Bobbsey Twins
books, the Nancy Drew books (one of my first feminist heroes — interestingly, several of the ones I had were from the first iteration, in the 1930s. The slang in the stories from that era fascinated me). I also discovered H. G. Wells The Time Machine
, and George Orwell’s 1984
(which frankly scared the piss out of me, worse than any horror story).
Soon after all this, I started exploring more female authors, including Ursula K. LeGuin (the Wizard of Earthsea
), Andre Norton
(though I had no idea she was female) and Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time
. I also discovered the Hobbit,
and then the Lord of the Rings
, both well before my fourteenth birthday. It wasn’t until much later that I was corrupted by Ayn Rand, which is probably what saved me.
But the one book? The one that defined my childhood? It was a story about a little boy who lived in a tower with no companion but a cat and a nurse, and legs that didn’t work. The Little Lame Prince
by Maria Dina Craik. I read it until the binding crumbled, and kept reading it. It is an incredibly melancholy tale, and inspiring and hopeful, and beautifully told, and just a bit subversive. I learned two important things from that beautiful little book, lessons that stood with me through time: That even if one is afflicted with misfortune, one can find joy in life, and that the way to that joy is to give of oneself to others.
And so I am sharing that with you now.
Related Articles:
Shared Joy: Jumping Rope
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Subscribe now and keep dancing! Subscribe by Email Return to Am I the Only One Dancing? for more, or go Walking Upstream for political writing.
