Sparking young imaginations

Anne here, and today I'm talking about some of the early books that sparked my youthful imagination. I'm a firm believer that exposing children to fantastic and fascinating stories when they're young, helps develop their imagination. And I believe that my early exposure to magical worlds and memorable characters made me a writer in later life. 

My parents, and my older siblings, who were a decade older, used to read to me when I was very small. Until I was four, we lived in a remote house in the bush with no electricity, and so there was no TV or even radio to entertain us. But we had books, and the surrounding bushland, and as well there were stories told aloud — stories from Mum and Dad about when they were children, stories passed down the generations and plenty of made-up stories.

So intrinsic to our lives was storytelling that I'm told that as a toddler I used to sit in the sandpit telling stories to the dogs and the horse. Because they were the only ones who could follow my babble.

From a very early age my family read me AA Milne aloud — not just the Winnie the Pooh stories, but the poems and I'm convinced their rhymes and rhythms sank into my brain well before I could read. If you've only heard or seen the Disney imitations, try reading the originals. They're wonderful — funny, wise, and gentle. And Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Wol and the rest were utterly real to me. 

You can listen to this audio version, read by Stephen Fry, Judi Dench, Geoffrey Palmer, Jane Horrocks and others you might recognize.  It's wonderful, (though I don't understand why the on-line version is using a Disney illustration instead of Earnest Shepard's gorgeous drawings, which is what I'm showing here.) You can also buy it here.

 Another favourite was a series called "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie," written and illustrated by May Gibbs. It's an Australian classic, and for me (and countless children down the generations) those stories brought to life in a magical way the bushland plants and creatures that surrounded us.

This tree in my front garden has reminded me of those stories and inspired this post. It's a "silver princess" eucalyptus (E. caesia) and the blossoms and gum nuts make me think of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. They were tiny "bush babies" and here are some of May Gibbs's timeless illustrations of them.

There were all kinds of different sorts of bush babies, depending on the trees they came from -- gum nut babies, wattle babies, all sorts. There were water babies, and ones that lived under mushrooms and toadstools. They interacted with birds and lizards and all the sort of creatures you might find in the bush.

 Ever since I was a child I used to collect different kinds of gum nuts and make tiny dolls out of them. You can see how these nuts from my silver princess would make perfect hats, or possibly tiny cradles for bush babies.

The stories weren't all sweet and cute, either. There were, for instance the big bad banksia men, who were a constant danger and could steal away a careless bush baby.

When you look at a real banksia cone, you can almost see the banksia man it contains. Certainly I could as a child. And to this day I see a banksia cone and think of the big bad banksia men. And whenever I see gum blossoms and gum nuts I still think of the bush babies that live there.

 Another author who inspired my imagination is one that UK readers as well as Australians and others would know — Enid Blyton, especially her books about The Faraway Tree. Oh, what a glorious tree that was, the tallest tree in the Enchanted Forest, with all kinds of curious folk living in it, and strange and magical lands that visited the top of the tree. And if you weren't careful, the land might move on, taking you with it. I loved those books.

Another one of her series was The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, and one of the characters in it was Tammylan, a "wild man" who lived in the forest in a house made of living trees. He had an amazing rapport with animals of all sorts and oh how I wanted a red squirrel to sit on my shoulder like him.

Arthur Rackham illustrations were magnificent — wonderfully spooky, dark and a little bit scary. They reminded me of the ice "paintings" that Jack Frost left on our windows in winter. 

And of course I adored all stories about animals. As well as the dog stories that I talked about in an earlier blog, there was Pookie, the white rabbit with wings, all the horse stories— Black Beauty, The Silver Brumby, and many more. Horse stories could easily fill another blog.

We had a big book of folk tales from all over the world, and some of those were very scary. Baba Yaga, anyone? And then there were the cautionary tales — I didn't like them much. Some really nasty things happened in those, generally to adventurous or spirited children. Bah humbug to that, say I! So I'll stick with Winnie the Pooh and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

Now, over to you — what stories sparked your childhood imagination? Do you read aloud to littlies? Any favorite books?

Comments

[Teresa Broderick]

I was amazed when I opened this post to read because just lately I've been rereading some of my childhood favourites. It started when I got covid and could not concentrate on anything and I found these easy to read and comforting. I've decided to carry on with them. I haven't heard of any of the interesting ones you loved Anne but Enid Blyton was my life line when I was growing up. I was an only girl in a family of four and all the children on our road my age were boys. I lived out in the country too with, for a number of years no electricity either. I'm an avid reader all my life. I LOVED The Folk of the Faraway Tree. I wanted to go there so badly. I also enjoyed the adventure stories she wrote. The Famous Five was my favourite.
I also read Tales of the Brother's Grimm. Very dark for young children and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. These are only a sample of my childhood reading. Forgive the long post. Your post touched something in me this morning. I've been feeling my age lately.
Hope you're settling in well to your new home.

[Kareni]

Thanks for a lovely post, Anne. I definitely enjoyed Enid Blyton's Five books as a child as well as a host of other children's books. (I suspect I was not a discriminating reader and would read anything and everything.) I also remember Baba Yaga from a collection of Russian folk tales that we had. Curiously, I never read the Pooh books as a child, so I sought them out as an adult and quite liked them.

[Cindy DeGraaff]

I was raised in the US, very Midwest, more urban than rural, though my grandparents were farmers. My earliest books were Dr. Seuss, a group of stories called “ Little Golden Books” that included classics like “The Little Engine That Could”, “The Poky Puppy”, “Mike and the Steamshovel”, and “Make Way for Ducklings”. I also loved “The Bobbsey Twins” and “Trixie Belden” series. I read Winnie the Pooh also, including the poems. My parents always read to us, and as we had a large family (5 kids), we had each kid take turns picking a book to read. My dad was a school librarian, and he loved reading to students. He did silly voices and made reading stories a great experience for us. I continued this with my kids, as one of mine was a reluctant reader. Now they’re all grown, but they still like to have me read aloud to them.😀

[Nancy Mayer]

The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Sara Crewe, the Secret Garden, the Hardy Boys. I learned to read early but was 7 or 8 before I discovered books that weren't text books or church books. Then I read everything I could get my hands on. I still find myself drawn more to mysteries and romantic suspense than to outright romance. I read Earle Stanley Gardner and Grace Livingston Hill when I was 11. Winnie the Pooh actually came much later when I had children. I never had any of the many books around for preschoolers. My first book was Dick and Jane before that I read my older sister's school books.

[Annette N]

I had to learn to read when I was nearly 4. There was no one who read to me....so out of need, I learned to read. In kindergarten I won a book because I was the only one would could already read.
I loved Nancy Drew and the 5 Little Peppers and Louisa May Alcott, and lots of other children's books. But, I started reading WWII books in about the 3rd grade. My father was a member of Book of the Month club and those were the books he got. No one noticed what I read, so I started reading those books. Most were written by men who had been in the war, so they were very exciting and interesting.
I feel so blessed that I learned to read and was able to go to the library bookmobile in elementary school. I always got as many books as were allowed. And I read everything I could find....cereal boxes were quite interesting...anyone know why riboflavin is in cereal?
I have always felt so very sorry for people who do not realize that reading is the most wonderful thing. I am listening right now to the Winnie The Pooh Stephen Fry audio book. Thank you so much for the wonderful introduction to this treasure.

[Jeanne Behnke]

Oh my - such a great column! Brings back all the joys of growing up reading. I read everything to my kids - lots of fairytales, Robin Hood, King Arthur and his Knights, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys. Of course, everything I had loved growing up. I never read Winnie the Pooh for some reason so my kids missed that too. Oh well, it's never too late.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Teresa. I hope you've recovered well from CoVid — Long Covid doesn't sound very good. And yes, thanks I'm settling in to my new home, though the bookshelves are yet to be built, so lots of boxes still.

Enid Blyton was also my lifeline as a child.I loved the Famous Five books, and also the Mystery of— series, and my faves were the "Adventure" books -- Valley of Adventure, Mountain of Adventure. etc. Sadly a lot of her books have dated badly. I don't have most of them as they were my oldest sister's books. I read all hers and also my brother's books — whatever I could get my hand on, actually.

If you've never read the Pooh stories, can I suggest you have a listen to the youtube audio versions. They're just as appealing to adults as for children, I think.

[Anne Gracie]

Kareni, I also read everything I could get my hands on. And luckily my parents never restricted my reading, so there were always their books available too.

[Anne Gracie]

Cindy, we had those little Golden Books in Australia, too. I remember all those you mentioned except Make Way for Ducklings. How wonderful to grow up with a librarian. And my oldest sister had some Bobbsey Twins books that I read, too.

I have also led a few reluctant readers to the joy of reading in my time. In fact it was a cross-age tutoring program in high school that turned be away from studying Law and into Education, and I've taught adult literacy in a voluntary capacity most of my adult life. And always focusing on the fun of reading.

[Anne Gracie]

I loved The Secret Garden, too, Nancy, and The Little Princess, too. And yes, I was a perpetually hungry reader, and read my older siblings books, as well as some of Mum and Dad's.

[Anne Gracie]

Annette, my mother was an elementary school teacher and did everything she could to prevent me learning to read before I started school. She said it would disrupt the teacher. Clever you to teach yourself.

Isn't that audio version of Winnie The Pooh wonderful? I want everyone to listen to it.
My older brother, when he went away to university, took Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner with him. Some of his friends ragged him for reading kids' books — he was the "huntin' fishin' shooting" type of boy, so it seemed crazy to them. But he sat them down and read some of the stories aloud. They laughed, and realized that though the books were aimed at children, they were also very appealing to adults.

[Anne Gracie]

Jeanne, oh yes, I loved Robin Hood stories too. And it certainly isn't too late to fall in love with Winnie the Pooh — try listening to that audio version I linked to. Yes, they're stories about a little boy and his toys, but the humor and the wisdom in them is very much for adults as well.

[Faith]

LOVE this post, and thank you so much! I’ve found Pooh and Piglet, tales by the brothers Grimm, and so many other characters popping up at odd moments in my adult life. Oddly, even though my family didn’t read children’s stories to me, there were always tons of books in the house for me to read on my own. And one of my grandmothers loved to tell scary fairy tales. I especially remember her version of The Water Babies.

But in a way I'm grateful that these marvelous stories and their wisdom waited for me until I read them to my kid, so all those wise, silly, scary characters felt (and still feel) free to pop up in my imagination to offer insights and advice when I need it.

Thanks again! I suspect I’m in for a fun day — or week or month — of visits from Eeyore, The Little Mermaid and more.

And I may re-read Bruno Bettleheim’s The Uses of Enchantment while I’m at it.

Faith

[Constance]

Thanks so much for this post, Anne - and could I just say “all of the above”! Plus Girl of the Limberlost, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and, of course, Anne of Green Gables, all 7 of them. We had a set of books called Childcraft Children’s Encyclopedia, which had separate volumes of nursery poems, story poems, stories, science, etc. They were a constant comfort and inspiration for play. My maternal grandmother was the best storyteller, always ready with her version of Cinderella, which included THREE balls before she lost her shoe, other fairy tales, and fantastic stories of growing up with 8 brothers and sisters on the farm. My paternal grandmother subscribed to Readers Digest Condensed Books, and when she napped in the afternoons, I would read whatever took my fancy. I was startled to see the recent announcement of a new movie called Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, which in the original is Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, a wonderful story which introduced me to the idea of high fashion and gave me, at 10 years old, a longing to see Paris! Like some of the other commenters, my parents never tried to control what we read, for which I thank them! My husband and I have 14 nieces and nephews and 12 grand nieces and nephews, and I am known as “the book aunt“ because that is always the gift of choice!

[Patricia Franzino]

One series I remember was Amelia Bedelia. She was a housekeeper who took all instructions from her employer too literally.

If she had to change a light bulb, and she was holding a basket of eggs, it would not occur to Amelia to put the basket down first.

If she was told to put rosebud sheets on the bed, the sheets would be covered in rosebuds.

[Karin Ahmed]

Thanks for this lovely post, which made me think back on memorable childhood stories. We had Childcraft Encyclopedia, which had several volumes of folk tales, poems, and other writings for children. The Lewis Carroll poems stick in my mind, as does Noyes "The Highwayman", which may be the origin of my love of romance!
We had a big book of Grimm's fairy tales, and my father also used to invent stories. One of them involved a cartoon mouse called Mighty Mouse, who was popular when I was a child. In my father's version, Mighty Mouse lived in our attic, which explained why the cats were afraid to go up there!
I never knew that eucalyptus seeds were called gum nuts, but I do have a necklace of them that I made many years ago. Not the lovely variety in your photo, but there is a eucalyptus that has been exported all over the world, you see a lot of them in California, with small brown nuts like little beads.

[Teresa Broderick]

I haven't read the Pooh stories Anne and I'll definitely try the Youtube audios.

[Teresa Broderick]

Jeanne I love the story of Robin Hood but can never decide which book is the best to read, there are so many of them. Could you recommend one to me? Thank you in advance:)

[Janet Murdoch]

I loved this post - thank you so much! Both my parents worked when I was a kid - Mom at night, Dad during the day - so I spent most of my time with my grandad. Mom and Grandad were great readers so books were very important to us. Grandad told me lots of stories when I was little and when I was 4 he started reading me the Rupert books from England. They were a combination of the written story, the story in pictures, plus what the characters speak in the pictures. Each day after he read me the newest Rupert for probably the 30th time he left me to look at it myself and follow the story by the pictures. I will never forget that "brief shining moment" when I literally heard a click in my brain and suddenly it all made sense! That was it - the only days in my entire life when I have not been reading were the 5 days I was recovering from eye surgery and could only watch tv - they were the longest days of my entire life - and I am not kidding. I read everything I could get my hands on and for a decade I always won the library prize for most books read over the summer. I loved Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Trixie Belden, -read all the Nancy Drew but liked Hardy Boys better. Read everything to do with horses, Walter Farley in particular but hated the classic ones as they were always so sad. I love Anne of Green Gables but my favourite LM Montgomery is The Blue Castle - probably read it 20 times! I am so thankful one, that my parents never stopped me reading any book I wanted to - and I mean ANY, two that Grandad started a secondhand book store when I was about 10. The magic of the written word - free to me! And yes, I have often wondered about all the weird ingredients inside cereal boxes!

[Anne Gracie]

I hope you love them, Teresa.

[Anne Gracie]

Faith, I think reading these stories to young children as an adult is often a wonderfully refreshing and renewing experience, as you realize there is so much more to them than you realized as a child. Even more so when you read them for the first time as an adult.

I love the sound of your grandmother's scary tales — maybe you could write them down for future generations. There's a story my dad used to tell that I included (sort of) in one of my books, and I must write it down as Dad used to tell it. I haven't read Bruno Bettleheim’s The Uses of Enchantment — I'll investigate. Thanks.

[Anne Gracie]

Constance, how wonderful to be 'The Book Aunt' — I also used to give my nieces and nephews books.
I love the sound of your Grandmother's Cinderella — talk about stringing out the tension!
My mother had the Mrs Harris books — Paul Gallico, wasn't it? Sadly, I suspect they're a bit dated now. And yes, I think it's wonderful when adults let kids read whatever takes their fancy.

[Anne Gracie]

Patricia, I haven't heard of Amelia Bedelia but I can imagine how much a small child would love that kind of thing — such fun..

[Anne Gracie]

Karin, my dad used to recite The Highwayman, and it always thrilled me, but the ending made me sad. Lovely that your father invented stories.

I've made many a necklace out of gun nuts — there are dozens of different varieties of eucalypts, and each one has a different sort of nut.
I think the californian eucalypts might have been brought over by gold diggers returning from the Australian goldfields. Our goldrush happened a few years after the American one, and lots of miners came here. Plenty returned, and plenty stayed.

[Anne Gracie]

Janet, I can imagine how difficult it was not to be able to read after your eye surgery. These days audio is so widely available it's a blessing, isn't it?
I have never understood why people read cereal boxes. I have a friend with whom I did a fair bit of travelling when we were young, and she always read cereal boxes, though not many books. But for me, if it doesn't have a story, or information I think I need, it's not for me.
These days, those weird ingredients are a bit of a warning to me.

[Kareni]

I think many of us read cereal boxes because they were there and the books were elsewhere!

[Binnie Syril Braunstein]

Anne-My childhood imagination was sparked by Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I first read it when I was 10. And almost immediately, I started re-writing it. I also acted it out behind closed doors. In my version, Jo always ended up with Laurie. Along with novels, I also worked my way through all the colors of the fairy tale books and then moved onto mythology. I was read to when I was younger-illustrated Jewish nursery rhymes. I loved them and have often wanted to read them again,but somehow it disappeared into the mists of time. I don't even remember the title. If I did, I would buy a copy. Lovely column, Anne.

[Constance]

Karin - I still have the volume of Childcraft that has The Highwayman in it, and the illustrations are just as wonderfully romantic to me now as when I first saw them, 60+years ago! And I loved Mighty Mouse - “Here he comes to save the day!”