What childhood books have shaped your views of certain things?

Random question i know.

But Roald Dahl's "James and Giant Peach" has left me with a sympathy toward spiders. I really dont like spiders. They scare the bejeebers out of me...BUT after reading that song as a child i always think twice about washing them down the shower or squashing them etc. I remember i even kept a spider alive in my shower for ages because i couldnt bring myself to kill it. I even rescued it from going down the drain! Poor thing decided to venture out of the bathroom though where mum found it.....rest is history.


Do you have any stories from when you were a child that have influenced you strangely??

please dont tell me its just me lol.....

Too, too many to list.

I think I have a lot of empathy and compassion as an adult, purely because I read so many books with a main character who has been disadvantaged or marginalised. Ones that really stand out include Skallagrig, about a couple of kids with severe cerebral palsy who are left in a very grim institution; A Candle for St Anthony, in which a couple of teens are bullied for being gay; and A Patch of Blue, in which a horribly neglected blind young woman meets a lovely guy in the park, but it turns out that it's 1960s Deep South and he's black. Ok, well some of these are Teen/YA reads, but still... that still counts as your childhood, doesn't it?

I guess the picture book equivalent is The Story of Ferdinand which I discovered (and loved) in my very first school library in Grade 1.

Rebecca's world by terry nation which I read when I was about 8 - it had a massive environmentalist thread running throughout and it had influenced my thinking greatly on these sorts of issues.

Thanks to my childhood reading I know that if anyone commits a crime it's probably going to be the foreign looking chappy with nasty close together eyes and that no feast is complete without lashings of ginger beer.

Not so much a book but poems by john keats especially ode on melancholy.

I always believe joy always comes after melancholy and if you dont experience the bitterness you cant appreciate the sweetness.

Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr Seuss. Love it and its message x

As a young child I loved Bread and Jam with Francis series by Russell Hoban. I loved it so much I bought the whole hard copy series as an adult.
My sister gave me a book when I was a pre teen called Are you there God? It's me Margaret, again I have purchased the book as it really has stuck with me. Being a pre teen is often not fun!
As a young teen it was poems, I bought the book I used for High School as I loved so many poems in it, my absolute favourite was I could not stop for death by Emily ****inson. I loved how excited she was about death and not afraid.
Bit of theme with buying child hood books :lol:
I also have The Winnie Pooh book series that my DH has read to my kids. Winnie the Pooh is really just a classic and so sweet, just like what child hood should be in a perfect world :)

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Not so much a book but poems by john keats especially ode on melancholy.

I always believe joy always comes after melancholy and if you dont experience the bitterness you cant appreciate the sweetness.

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Just looked that up. Beautiful. Have you seen the movie, Bright Star?

Thanks Marydean. Just read the summary of the movie. Didnt even realised they made a movie about him lol

I watched it because its a Jane Campion film (The Piano is one of my all time fave fave favorites). And I adored it. Beautifully made film. Definitely check it out.

I remembered another one. Did anyone ever read Go Ask Alice? There was one tatty copy that got handed around like wildfire in grade 10 - [SPOILER ALERT] everyone thought it was totally a true story - and I honestly believe it did a lot to shape the anti-drugs stance that many of my friends took, bearing in mind that was the late 80s & early 90s when the whole E & rave culture was MASSIVE.

I stumbled across a 2nd hand copy the other day & snapped it up. Of course I know now it was all a crock, and I'm dying to re-read now with my adult brain LOL

Go Ask Alice wasn't true? :o

I don't know what to think lol.

Whoops. LOL. Guess I should have put a spoiler alert in there. In our defence that was before the internet was even invented so everyone was 700% more naive than they are now.

AB Patterson's "A Fortunate Life". Read it when I was about nine.

Made me really appreciate what I have.

However due to its nature, I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone under about 14 unless they were particularly mature.

True story of a orphan boy growing up in early Australia.

Sun on the Stubble by Colin Thiele. Helped me understand the background of my State.

Romeo & Juliet: I read this when I was about 10. Pretty sure it shaped my view of love as a teenager and started my love of "break up" poetry and songs (as DH calls them).

Remote man by Elizabeth Honey. Gave me insight to depression in a parent and how a child would see/cope with it.

What do you think feezel? By Elizabeth Honey. Made me decide as a child I wanted to be a stay at home mum.