The Book of Me, Written by You - Week 46 - Childhood Reading

The Book Of Me, Written By You is a 15 month project set up by Julie Goucher at Anglers Rest.

Each week there are prompts which require answering.

Week 46 - Childhood Reading

I loved reading as a child, I loved having the time to delve into books. Now, as an adult I rarely read novels as I'm often so busy with work or blogging or surfing the internet or researching my family tree, unless I am on holiday and away from all other distractions, I generally don't read for pleasure.

As a child, I remember reading with a torch under the covers after I should have gone to bed and to sleep, if I heard my parents coming up the stairs I would quickly switch it off and pretend I was asleep.

Bookshelf of Enid Blyton works
(Image from: www.wikipedia.org, accessed 20 Sept 2014)

I loved bedtime reading and bedtime stories. I even remember my dad making up stories when we were on holiday to get us to sleep, they were about me and my brother getting up to all sorts of adventures. I loved Enid Blyton books, initially the Secret Seven, Malory Towers, the Famous Five and later still the Adventure series - I didn't read them all but I certainly read all the ones I owned or the local library had in stock. I always found her writing so exciting and it would draw me in as I wanted to have an adventure of my own. We often played making up our own secret club with our neighbours and we tried to find and make a secret hidey hole in the rhododendron bushes near our house.

Your Country Needs You
(Image from: www.wikipedia.org,
accessed 20 Sept 2014)

I would also read the Babysitting Club books as I always wanted to be a baby sitter when I was older, although I never did that much baby sitting when I became old enough to.

One of my all time favourite books is Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian, I have read the book a few times but also watched the TV version with John Thaw over and over again, in fact if I had the DVD of it I would probably still watch it now, it's such a loving, warm story about poor boy William during WW2.

I also loved the Anne of Green Gables series when I reached my teens but some of those stories are so sad and moving. I always wanted to be quite like Anne, successful and great at what she did yet with my head often in the clouds.

Today I generally read historic novels around the late Victorian, Edwardian and World War periods - such as Call The Midwife and I love Annie Murray's novels about Birmingham during the depression. I think this reading fuels my interest in social history and helps me understand life in my grandparents and great grandparents eras.

I have never been particularly interested in reading sci-fi books or anything that required more imagination, or belief. I like and still love real life stories, fiction or non-fiction.