As a child which were your favourite children's stories?
Mine were Pinocchio and Jack and the Beanstalk. This was before Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, the Famous Five and the Five Find-Outers, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, the William stories, and C.S. Lewis came along and nudged me toward books for young adults. Incidentally, I discovered the term ‘YA’ somewhere in the nineties long after I grew out of my teens. Did the term originate later or was it my ignorance? The latter, I guess.
The magical world in the two fairy tales held me spellbound. I suspect I used to like these books more because of the covers of the Classics Illustrated editions that I owned and read over and over again. I was so fascinated by the clean and colourful illustrations that I used to draw some of the strips and paint them with water colours, which came in a pocket sized flat box of 10 or 12 circular shaped colours with a small flimsy brush. I’d sit with this set, a little plastic palette, a steel container filled with water, and an A4 sized drawing book, and proceed to recreate those charming pictures. It was annoying when the colours got mixed or the round paints came off. Nonetheless, many a happy hour was spent this way.
The magical world in the two fairy tales held me spellbound. I suspect I used to like these books more because of the covers of the Classics Illustrated editions that I owned and read over and over again. I was so fascinated by the clean and colourful illustrations that I used to draw some of the strips and paint them with water colours, which came in a pocket sized flat box of 10 or 12 circular shaped colours with a small flimsy brush. I’d sit with this set, a little plastic palette, a steel container filled with water, and an A4 sized drawing book, and proceed to recreate those charming pictures. It was annoying when the colours got mixed or the round paints came off. Nonetheless, many a happy hour was spent this way.
Although I liked Pinocchio, I felt sorry for Geppetto’s wooden puppet. I think he has been one of the most recreated and vulgarised characters in all of literature, adapted in so many mediums that you forget what the original looked like. For instance, I don’t particularly remember Pinocchio as being whiny, Shrek told me so. I remember him as being a quiet little fellow. Well, he didn’t inspire me as much as the adventurous Jack did. I thought it was very brave of him to climb a giant tree with his harp and confront the monster lurking in the sky. The huge tree spiralling up endlessly caught my imagination like few things did in those days.
Pinocchio and Jack and the Beanstalk are fairy tales, morals actually, but I wonder if these and other similar children’s stories can be considered as fantasy, sf, and supernatural literature; perhaps, a child’s initiation into these genres. Alright, let’s not take the fun away from the kids.
Pinocchio and Jack and the Beanstalk are fairy tales, morals actually, but I wonder if these and other similar children’s stories can be considered as fantasy, sf, and supernatural literature; perhaps, a child’s initiation into these genres. Alright, let’s not take the fun away from the kids.