littlemoose

I'm doing the Friday Five this week, as it's all about my favourite things ;-)

1. What were your favorite childhood stories?
I owned and devoured a lot of the 'Coping With...' books, they were just my kind of off the wall humour. I picked up the newest one everytime we had a book fair in school. (I'm pleased to see Peter Corey's still writing them too!) I loved the local legends that my Uncle Frank used to tell me, he's a wonderful storyteller. The Children of Lír was a favourite... I loved anything by Roald Dahl, Matilda was my very favourite. I also loved the Alice stories, especially 'Through The Looking Glass, and what Alice found there.' I also remember a really disgusting book called "Wagstaffe the Wind-Up Boy" which was written like one of those morality fables, about a boy who was rebuilt to run on clockwork after being almost killed, but turned out to have no morals whatsoever, which pleased me ;-)

2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?
I don't intend on having any, but a child raised on The Wind In The Willows, Roger McGough and Michael Rosen's poetry and a steady stream of Roald Dahl will never go far wrong!

3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?
I was a bit depressed when I re-read 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' as an adult... Lewis kind of whacks you over the head with all the Christian allegory. Re-reading it as a cynical, athistic adult kind of tarnished the sense of wonder I had when I read it at eight. I dug out the 'Coping With...' books I own a while ago too, and I was surprised that they still make me laugh, I suppose that was the main reason I liked them so much as a kid - they weren't patronising in their humour.

4. How old were you when you first learned to read?
Two or three. I could read well before I weant to school, there were always books in the house, and there was always somone reading to me.

5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you?
If the Discworld books count, which I don't think they do, then I was about 11 or 12, and I read "Better Than Life" which was one of the Red Dwarf novels, around the same time. The first really DARK adult book I read was "Getting Rid of Mr Kitchen" when I was 16. It took me 6 months to finish because everytime I got to a really sick bit I hid it behind the sofa until I could carry on! I kept it though, and I've re-read it since then!