NH: Re British vs. North American children's lit: I'd never thought of
it that way before. I believe you're correct; one of the few places
where the canons overlap is in kid's fantasy. I also devoured any number
of English boarding school My-Friend-Flicka type novels about horsey
girls having secret midnight sardine sandwich picnics, but I find that
when I refer to that type of writing, North American people just stare at
me blankly. 'Course, it all read like fantasy to me. _My Friend Flicka_
had as much to do with my reality as _The Catcher in the Rye_ or the Tom
Swift stuff. They were all unreal worlds.
-nalo
On Fri, 16 May 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote:
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
[So I tell my brother about being in the sf bookstores & everywhere
the covers show bronze, blue and gold-skinned aliens and white humans.
"What is that about," I ask him, "that the people of colour are all
aliens?" And he says wryly, "Maybe they're phasing us in."]
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