The Books From Childhood That Shaped Me as a Reader
A.k.a. everything I managed to convince my parents to buy me from the Scholastic Book Fair catalogue. God I loved their crinkly paper.
A month or more ago, I talked about the books that shaped me as an adult reader and it sparked such insightful, endearing and nostalgic conversations with so many readers that I wanted to revisit the topic. When I upgraded my bookcase situation recently, it meant I could bring out more books from storage to display, and I couldn’t wait to show off the books from my childhood that, really, made me a reader.
Like so many of you in this cosy community, I’ve been a reader all my life. You see, I was raised in England in a second-generation immigrant family with Cantonese as my first, native language. (Perhaps I’ll write about this in a future essay?) This meant that when I started curriculum education, I was a touch behind in my English and required additional support. A few times a week, I was pulled from non-essential lessons to work on my spoken and written English and, most excitingly, I was always given homework in the shape of ‘read a book with your parents’. I firmly believe this is how I got into the habit of forever pulling a book from the shelves or my book bag.
From borrowing practically every single book available in our KS1 library1 to obsessively drawing rings around my Scholastic Book Fair picks and begging Mum to buy them all for me, I’ve always been a book girlie. Let me introduce you to just a few of the books I remember loving as a child and that, in hindsight, I think completely shaped me as a reader and human.
Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
All of the Jacqueline Wilson books helped to raise me, but Girls in Love is the book and trilogy that stands out to me the most. I think I read this as a pre-teen and that it embedded certain markers of what teenage life would like. Spoiler: nothing was like the books (or TV show) and I probably still try and chase the cornerstones of a shared Bri’ish teen experience.
Ellie, Nadine and Magda are best friends and boy-obsessed. When Ellie goes on a family holiday to Wales, she meets a ‘nerdy boy’, Dan, who asks her out. She turns him down and they go their separate ways. But then, she returns to find that Nadine and Magda have each found boyfriends over the summer holiday. So, she begins to regale tales of her own boyfriend, ‘Dan’. I remember loving the real way that Wilson portrays the girls’ friendships, their anxieties and the general worry of being a teenager on the cusp of having sex.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
This trilogy feels so special to me because it’s one that my brother and I shared, but it’s also the series that got me into fantasy. I have always been an other-worlds girlie. From daemons to the parallel England setting, I fell in love with Lyra and her strong temperament and thinking that I too would find a daemon and transport to parallel worlds to save our world from its evils.
Harry Potter
I’ve gone back and forth for ages about whether to include Harry Potter, the famously unauthored series, in this round-up. But, in the end, I realised it was far too important and meaningful for me then to not include. In fact, for over a decade I cherished this magical wizarding school world, and the lessons I took from it guided me as a teenager and young adult. As a British millennial in her thirties, I was one of those readers that queued up at midnight, dressed in robes to pick up my hardback edition from the bookshops. As a girl who was bullied throughout primary school and secondary school, I found comfort in dwelling with these fictional outsiders, my fellows. I learned that being different was magic, I learned that I could be whoever I truly am. I spotted a Chinese character in a book for the first time ever! I found joy in solace, spending hours between the pages of my beloved magical books and understanding I wasn’t alone so long as I had books, and magic.
It goes without saying that I am vehemently against the rhetoric and outlandishly transphobic comments that J.K. Rowling makes and continues to make. It has been a ride to know that she held these thoughts while conjuring up one of my favourite fictional worlds. Separating the art from the artist is likely not possible, but I am grateful for everything that Harry Potter brought and taught me, and am happy to have mindfully closed that chapter.
Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Look, your girl loved escaping to alternate realities. I absolutely LOVED Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman. This is a speculative fiction novel that tackles the idea of segregation. As a Chinese kid growing up in the 90s, I was more than aware of being and feeling othered, and this book spoke to me. In this series, the Crosses are dark-skinned people in control of the Noughts, who are light-skinned. Sephy is a Cross, the daughter of a senior politician and, later, Prime Minister, while Callum is a Nought, born to Meggie who is employed by Sepoy’s mother. The two would play as children, forming a secret friendship – interracial friendships are taboo in their world. Soon, the pair meet again at Heathcroft, a school for Crosses that now accepts clever, top-performing Noughts. Despite others’ opinions, the two reunite.
I’d really love to reread this and examine the early effects that reading this as a child had on me!
The Doomspell by Cliff McNish
Another fantasy from my childhood, which I’m currently rereading, The Doomspell follows two children, Rachel and Eric, who are hurled through a wall and transported to another world, snatched by the Witch.
Rachel discovers she has extraordinary gifts. The Witch discovers she has met her match. Perfectly packed with action and with a joyous, defiant childlike thread throughout, this is one for my fellow His Dark materials fans.
Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
Finally, I’ve chosen a book that completely opened my eyes to the fact that there could be Asian characters in books. Of course I’d already found Cho Chang in Harry Potter, but now I’d found a whole book set in Japan with East Asian characters, heritage, history and rituals. I read this when I was 11, and it’s a samurai warrior fantasy fiction, filled with family saga threads, sword battles, love stories and ninja powers. I’m convinced this one filled me with a love for action films and family saga books.
Strangely, writing this has made me really want to revisit all of these novels again. I sense a reread project coming and I’m definitely going to be writing about it here.
What are some of the books you adored in your childhood?
KS1 denotes Key Stage One, an educational period in the UK that spans Reception (age 4-5) to Year Six (age 10-11).