Friday Fives: Favourite Childhood Books

It’s Friday Fives time at Paper Hangover, and this time they want to know: What are your FIVE favorite childhood books? Now, you may have observed that in this post’s title, I spelled “favourite” with a “u.” This is not a typo (my British and Canadian readers look confused–“who said it was a typo?”), but deliberate. I spent the large majority of my life through to the age of 22 in the UK. I’m a former British citizen, so you see how that kind of makes sense. So, the spelling is in homage to my homeland. It also provides context to my book choices, since these were books that I read (or had read to me, or both) as a boy living in England. Here are the books I’ve chosen to spotlight. As you might expect, I have something to say about each of them. 🙂

Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion: I must have been about nine or ten when I read this. It is a novelization of the story “Spearhead from Space,” the first Third Doctor story, first broadcast in 1970. I wouldn’t have seen it when it first broadcast, and at this time I had probably never seen it. This was in the days before DVDs–even before VHS! Unless they re-ran the show on television (which they rarely did), the novelization was the only chance to experience stories I never saw. The author, Terrance Dicks, is a legend in the Doctor Who community. He was script editor for the show for four or five years, and wrote a large number of the novelizations. I can’t say his literary style is the best (though this was his first attempt), but he still did a good job of representing on paper what we would have seen on screen, and giving insight into the characters, their thoughts and feelings, that we wouldn’t have seen.

Grimble and Grimble at Christmas: Originally released as two books, I remember this anthology as the one I checked out from the library, and eventually purchased for myself. It first came to my attention when Grimble was read–by the author, I believe–on the British children’s show “Jackanory” sometime in the late 1970s.  Can you imagine, a kids’ show that featured a celebrity (or the author) sitting and reading a book, with occasional cut-aways to pictures from the book? And that’s it. No dancing and singing, or flashy animation. Simple story-telling. Each week would feature a different book, and it would be read in segments lasting about 15 mins each day, Mon-Fri. I *loved* that show! Anyway, what particularly grabbed me about this one were the illustrations by the amazingly talented Quentin Blake. Mr. Blake went on Jackanory a few times himself. He had a marker and a long sheet of paper, and he would illustrate the story as he told it. So cool! Anyway, this is probably my favourite of all my childhood books. The first story tells of a boy named Grimble, whose parents leave him on his own for a week. Notes left around the house instruct him on what to eat, or who to visit for meals, and other things he needs to do. Grimble at Christmas follows our hero as he and his family prepare for the holiday season. This book should be perpetually in print, and required reading for every sentient being.

The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England: OK, so from the age of about eight, I have been somewhat fascinated with British history, particularly the English monarchy. My pre-teen party trick was to name all the English monarchs from William I to present day in order (I can still do it). My dad got this book from a book club, and I claimed it for my own (I still have it). I even made some notes at the end of the article on William II regarding his mysterious death in the New Forest in 1100. The article doesn’t pronounce on whether it was murder or an accident. In my 9-or-10-year-old scrawl, I confidently conclude that it was an accident (I’m not so sure of that today). There was a companion series of books that I saw advertized in magazines, each book dealing with an individual monarch. Whenever I saw it, I would take it to my dad with my best puppy-dog eyes. I don’t remember how much each volume was at the time, but my dad always insisted he couldn’t afford it. I don’t doubt he couldn’t–we were by no means a wealthy family. But I have for the past few years been scouring ebay and Amazon Marketplace for these books, and I now have all but four of the set.

The Mr. Men: Possibly the first books I started reading. I can remember being about 4 or 5 years old–before I started going to school and my mum had to take me shopping with her–and my mum buying me Mr. Men books to read to keep me busy while she shopped. Simple little stories with bold and distinctive illustrations, each book tells a story featuring one of the Mr. Men. Each Mr. Man’s name represents a physical or emotional quality/flaw (Mr. Strong, Mr. Worry, Mr. Bump–he’s accident-prone, Mr. Tickle–he has extraordinarily long arms for tickling people, etc.). The series actually continued for a number of years, with new characters being added. My younger brother took up the collection after I grew a little too old for them (probably around the time I left for University… 😉 ).

Jennings and Darbishire: This was actually a series of books set in an English public school during the post-war period (mainly 1950s). Each book tells an adventure of Jennings, and his faithful friend Darbishire. If you are at all familiar with the stereotypical boys-only English public school, then you have an idea of the tone of the books. I started reading them before I was a student at a very similar kind of school (except Hereford Cathedral School had been co-ed since the 1970s), but I still enjoyed reading them into my early teens, even though the language and attitudes were of a different age. Darbishire’s first letter home in the first book in the series (Jennings Goes to School) still to this day makes me laugh out loud.

There are my selections. What about you–can you name five favorite childhood books?