The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading

This reminds me of the year I really got into reading (5th - 6th grade), and I remember reading: Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Julie of the Wolves, the Babysitter's Club, The Giver, Holes, and Captain Underpants. I honestly could go on and on.

These are all wildly different books and I loved them all! At that age, I had no idea what I even wanted from literature. I just asked the Children's Librarian for books and she decided for me. Almost all of these books were plain old good stories.

It took me years to figure out what my reading preferences were. And as I got older, my fiction choices dramatically reduced in breadth. I kind of miss the lack of discernment I had when I was a reader of exclusively Children's Lit.

Now, it's really hard for me to read anything that's not the very specific genre of Psychological Thriller or woman-authored LitFic that I prefer.

I miss just receiving a stack of books and loving whatever I got. That there is the real magic of Children's lit.

Haven’t had a chance to read the book itself but I am working through a history of fairy tales called “From the beast to the blonde”. Not just the stories but also the people who told them. Goes back all the way from Old Mother Goose to the ancient Greek Sybil. Fascinating stuff

Good review: I hadn't heard the Christian Science take on The Secret Garden before and am surprised the wikipedia article doesn't mention it, but it's pretty obvious now. The title imagery really makes me think of:

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.