I noticed this on the Wheeler Centre website.
What are the books that you loved when you were younger, but now make you cringe with embarrassment? We've asked bookish folk like Kirsten Tranter, Michaela McGuire, the Wheeler Centre's Jenny Niven and Ronnie Scott that very question – and the answers have included R.L. Stine, Sweet Valley High, Judy Blume and Michael 'Jurassic Park' Crichton.
Is it just me or is it unfair to pin point books from your childhood that you are ashamed to admit you loved as a kid. What about targeting books from your adult life that you once loved but that now make you cringe? It smacks of the superior attitude so many people in adult publishing demonstrate when it comes to children's books. So what if you loved Goosebumps when you were eleven and read every one in the series? Or Sweet Valley High? Ok, so those books might have been rather a long time ago but every generation has had a series like these that wasn't the most literary in the reading world but they got us reading and kept us reading. And isn't that the whole point?
Emily Rodda aka Jenny Rowe has always said that reading is what counts - so called 'rubbish' books might be what we want today but we are unlikely to always want them and as we grow our tastes change and our reading choices grow and mature. But we should not be ashamed about our youthful reading choices. Books we loved should not make us cringe with embarassment. So shame on you, Wheeler Centre, for intimating that there were ever books we loved that we should now hide from view, take off our shelves or refuse to admit to in public. They made us happy once. They were a friend, a place to retreat to and a comfort.
And in case you're interested, I LOVED Cherry Ames, Student Nurse and A Little Bush Maid. What did you love?
A note from your Conductor xx
A note from your Conductor xx
I devoured Sweet Valley High - I wanted to be Elizabeth - although she was rather a goodie too-shoes. Then I went on to Seniors - Sweet Dreams with a little X-rated material. Although I read these books when I was about 16, even (way back) then I felt a bit sheepish about it and they were read in the privacy of my teenage bedroom :)My guilty pleasure now (apart from an adult fixation with children's books) would have to be the occasional Agatha Christie.
ReplyDelete