Fairy Tales
Four Years Old
Scene: Sister Aloysius's reception class; a small parquet floored room in a provincial convent school.
I am standing next to Sr Aloysius, she holds a dog-eared copy of 'Janet and John: Out to Play' on her lap.
"Look, Mother.
Look at my horse.
It can go up and down.
Up and down I go."

Thinks: This is dull but perhaps we'll listen to 'The Sound of Music' soundtrack and perhaps Christopher Smythe will let me use his crayons.

Six Years Old
Scene: A small village library. Late summer sun streams in through the high windows and pools in large warm rectangle. Dust motes hover and play in the shaft of light and a gentle haze of B.O. and three day old socks lift from the red corded carpet.
I am sat cross-legged at the edge of the sunlit square. In my hands is a large orange hardcover book, the cloth binding is slightly grubby and the pages are thick with ragged edges. Behind me on the low wooden bookshelves stand the last two weeks of adventure; one golden yellow, the other forest green. As I turn the page of 'The Orange Fairy Book' by Andrew Lang I begin reading 'The Story of the King who would see Paradise'.

Over the next few years I make my way through the bazaars of Baghdad, fly past minarets of the Ottoman empire, fight off pirates with scimitars in the South China Seas, take tea with wolves and princesses, and disappear every day from my bedroom in a small semi in a rural village.

Perrault, the Grimms, the Arabian Nights; all of them had a place at some time on my own bookshelves.

Teens
Scene: The back seat of a number 609 bus. It's late afternoon, dark, cold and it's raining persistantly.
Steam rises from my dark green gabardine raincoat and brings out the odor of long since smoked Embassy No.1s that's holding together the seat covers along with bus tickets and cast off Bazooka Joes. My school bag holds a mix of English Literature set texts and contraband books; 'Flowers in the Attic', 'The Amityville Horror', 'Lucky', and 'Full Circle'.

University years (and there were a lot of them) saw loads more set texts mixed with The Big Pink Stiff One and other such modern classics. I could give lists of all the worthy books I waded through; all the Russian literature, the great English classics, the Americans, the French, Spanish, blah, blah, blah. So what? None of them gave me as much pleasure as those fairy tales read as a child.

And now? I spend my days immersed in literature but for pleasure I read any old junk including Lee Child, Chick Lit, JK Rowling; but then I like to listen to James Blunt and Will Young.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Sun 8 Jan 2012, 21:03, 3 replies)

Tell me more about Sr Aloysius
and the horse going up and down.
I seem to remember something like this in a book about Catherine the Great.
But I know what you mean by the fairy tales. I spent meany years puzzled over the resonance I felt from The Juniper Tree(My mother killed me / My father ate me/ My little sister Marlinchen gathers my bones). I think that says something about me that I'm not prepared to admit.
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 2:25, closed)

Lovely...
Possibly my genuine favourite book related experience was when I was about 7 years old, and a schoolteacher read to our class: 'The House that Sailed Away' and put on different voices for the different characters. Pure awsomesauce.

I would've posted about it on here but was worried about getting torn a new one by the intellectual bigwigs.

bugger.

*clicks*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 9 Jan 2012, 9:31, closed)

Ah yes,
I've still got my 'Treasury of Childrens Literature', torn cloth covers, musty smell, amazing illustrations. Full of things like exerts from The Hobbit, Bluebeard, Chicken Licken, the Waterbabies and countless others.

I'll have to curl up in a corner with it next weekend now.

















But James Blunt!!!!!!!!! How could you???????
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 13:12, closed)