Remembering how it all started…

Today is World Book Day, a brilliant idea designed to inspire children to read more and go to school as one of their favourite characters from a book. Personally, any initiative which encourages children to understand the beauty of books and what can be found amongst their pages can only be a good thing and all of us should play our part in its promotion.

Seeing photographs of my friends children on social media dressed as firemen, Harry Potter and so on made me think about my own childhood and the books which inspired me. Whilst I loved fiction and authors such as Roald Dahl and Alan Garner, I always enjoyed non-fiction and most especially anything which taught me about ‘far away places’.

For it was these books which contained drawings of children of different skin colour, clothing and social backgrounds which I found so fascinating as a child. Growing up in the early seventies, I relied upon books such as the ‘Do You Know’ series to fuel my imagination and they did so brilliantly.

So, what was my favourite reading material as a child? Certainly Dahl’s ‘Danny, Champion of the World‘, Garner’s ‘Weirdstone of Brisingamen’, any of the ‘Prince Caspian’ series by Lewis and anything which involved collecting tea cards and sticking them in a book!

Feel free to let me know which ones you enjoyed, or still do for that matter and regardless of your age, Happy World Book Day!