Childhood Books Revisited

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In my post last week about Diana Wynne Jones I had mentioned that I would try to read, and in some cases reread, as many of her books as I can during the next week or so. And since many of her books were favorites of mine when I was younger, I’m actually quite excited about the prospect of revisiting them.

At the same time, I’m also a little nervous.

Even though I have been reading fantasy since I was a eleven, I rarely go back and read my childhood favorites, although I do like to keep them on a shelf close by. I suppose I’m just afraid that the books that I had loved so much as a child might not live up to my expectations, now that I’m an adult.

I remember the first time I had read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as an adult, expecting to be fully entranced by this magical book which had so captivated me when I was younger. Instead I was disappointed that the book seemed more simplistic than I remembered it. With a critical eye honed over years of steady reading, I couldn’t help examining the characters and their developments and finding them lacking. My acceptance of Aslan as good and gracious wasn’t as forthcoming as when I was younger. My adult-self wanted more evidence to back up claims about characters and events, which my child-self had easily accepted.

In short, this rereading experience was a disaster and I therefore decided it would be best to leave my childhood books untouched, so that they may preserved in my memory in all their original perfection.

But now as I prepare to read Jones’s The Lives of Christopher Chant for the first time in fifteen years, I will be breaking this rule that I had set for myself, and I am a bit apprehensive about it.

I really can’t avoid reading this, and other of my childhood books, forever, since I would really love to share them with my own children, who are almost at an age to read them themselves. I also really do want to return again to those worlds and characters that had so strongly sparked my imagination and sent me searching for more adventures of fantasy and magic. But I just need to go about it the right way. I think I need to set aside the critical analysis which is so much a part of my reading these days, and try to reclaim the easy acceptance and pure enjoyment that I once found in the simple telling of a story.

And I think I’m ready.

So I’m off to revisit the world of magic, witches and the Christomanci. And if all goes well, I’m going to get all my old books off the shelves and give them some longer-overdue attention.