On Thu, 15 May 1997 17:11:43 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote:
> NH: I'm in the lucky position of having come from a bookish family.
Dad
> was a writer, Mum's a library cataloguer. Don't remember holiday
reading
> separately from other reading, partly because I spent my childhood
in the
> Caribbean, where seasons aren't as clearly defined. Did my share
of
> reading under the covers with a flashlight as a child, but no-one
batted
> an eye at a kid who could get so lost in a book that she'd block out
the
> whole world. My dad did the same all the time. I managed to be a
> tomboy, too; perfected the art of swinging up into the branches of
> whatever tree was my current favourite with a book clenched
between my
> teeth. Kid's books I remember fondly are:
>
> _A Traveller in Time_ Alison Uttley
> _Underground Alley_ (forget the author)
> _Green Knowe Series_ (agh! author's name on my tonguetip, but I
can't
> spit it out)
> -Gulliver's Travels_ (what did I know from social commentary?)
> _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ C.S. Lewis (this one was
a class
> text that I read in a matter of days before school even began. Got
to
> read the part of Aslan the Lion when he created the world (what did I
> know from Christian allegory?). Still remember whole chunks of
that text.)
> _Alice in Wonderland_ and _Through the Looking Glass_ my 1st
form
> English teacher (that would be Grade 7, I think, or maybe 8 or 9;
never
> can get it straight) taught us some tunes for some of the songs.
Still
> remember those to this day.
>
> Living in ex-colonies, much of the reading matter to which we had
access
> was published in England. As I look back at those titles, I realise
how
> many of them are English.
>
> Do remember one seasonal novel; by then we'd moved to Toronto
and there
> were definite seasons. Always got books for Xmas & birthday,
which come
> within days of each other. My dad gave me Frank Herbert's
_Dune_ one
> year. I don't think I surfaced until after new year's. Carried it with
> me everywhere. The sheer scope of it enthralled me.
>
> -nalo
>
I too came from a bookish family, I just took the definition to new
extremes. Re your ex-pat past... I have been fascinated to discover
how different the US children's canon is to that of Britain and the
British Empire (where children seem to have received British books
as Sunday school prizes). One of the few meeting points seems to
have been in fantasy.
Farah
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