Apparently I was reading from very early on. Thinking about my earliest days first then… I remember a couple of books that were my earliest memories of getting choked up at a story rather than ‘merely’ diverted or amused. I got them out of the library repeatedly. The first one was called The Man Who Took His Indoors Out, a lovely illustrated book written in verse. It was about this bloke who got felt sorry for the somewhat sentient furniture and utensils imprisoned in his house. So one day he takes them out for a walk - the piano, sofa, all the plates and cutlery, the grandfather clock - the lot. They’re absolutely loving it, but start to get unruly in some ways, and it gets out of his control. Before he knows it, as it’s starting to get dark, the furniture races ahead leaving him alone and it goes to the beach, some of it jumping in the sea. Wild abandon basically. He’s trying to catch up with them for days saying ‘please come back’ and then gets too tired and sad and goes home. All he has left is his old rocking chair and he goes into a deep sadness sitting in it. A year passes, and every day he watches from the uppermost window hoping to see even one thing return. One snowy winters day, he hears the distant sound of piano keys. And one by one, all his exhausted furniture stumbles back up the lave and into his house every bit of it is chippped or scratched or knocked out of tune or cracked. But he’s just so happy to see them he says ‘honestly, it’s fine guys- I’m just delighted you’re here at all’ (or similar), come in from the cold. And then because he’s so happy he dances with the rocking chair out on the porch like a carefree lunatic. I’m not sure what it was that moved me so deeply - it’s quite a silly story. I think it was the fact that he just forgave the entire thing because he loved his belongings unconditionally and the fact that they were all fucked up now didn’t matter to him, they were back and safe and that’s all that’s mattered.
The other one that hit me like that was Dogger by Shirley Hughes about a wee boy who loves his toy dog (a soft toy that’s seen better days) but it accidentally gets sold in a jumble sake and he’s inconsolable. But then his sister helps him get him back by giving away to the girl who bought him the big teddy bear she won at the jumble sale, as a swap. She gave up her big prize to make her wee brother happy again. The selflessness of that still makes me want to cry. it’s so gorgeously illustrated too.
If there’s a common theme there, it’s about lost causes and the wish fulfilment, the fantasy (I now see as an adult) that they’re never truly lost. That the people and things we love but who are lost to us… might one day come ‘home’. It’s a nice story to tell ourselves when we need the tiniest bit of hope.
those poems like stories remind me of Julian Tuwim poems I loved as a kid, especially ''Glasses'' and ''Locomotive'', poems were written in polish almost a century ago, but I found a website with most of them wierszykidladzieci.pl/wierszetuwima.php , and if you right click somewhere blank with page open and choose 'translate to english' google does decent translations these days, but it makes mistakes still.
If there’s a common theme there, it’s about lost causes and the wish fulfilment,
For me it was adventure/exploration. I was locked in my room most of my childhood between 7 and 15 y.o. except going to school and back.
those poems like stories remind me of Julian Tuwim poems I loved as a kid, especially ''Glasses'' and ''Locomotive'', poems were written in polish almost a century ago, but I found a website with most of them wierszykidladzieci.pl/wierszetuwima.php , and if you right click somewhere blank with page open and choose 'translate to english' google does decent translations these days, but it makes mistakes still.
If there’s a common theme there, it’s about lost causes and the wish fulfilment,
For me it was adventure/exploration. I was locked in my room most of my childhood between 7 and 15 y.o. except going to school and back.
If we're going with kids books I'm going to add Room on the Broom.
Made me cry the first time I read it to my kids. That whole "is there room for me?" "YES!" thing still gets me. That's some pretty radical acceptance right there.
Seeing you quote me there realised I’m over complicating it with the mind of and adult. I just found a PDF of Dogger online and really it’s power is very simple: it’s about kindness. And accidental hurt. But mostly kindness.
‘And then Bella did something *very* kind…’ I’m 45 years old and I’m in tears at just that sentence.
I love that final thing at the end too. ‘Won’t you miss that big teddy?’ ‘Not really’ said Bella, ‘he was too big and his eyes were too stare-y’ I think she might be playing it down, it’s ambiguous. But it’s more important to her that her brother wasn’t sad anymore. I’m not sure any adult book has taught me anything more profound than that, not so purely and concisely anyway. It’s like magic.
