Can you remember the first time you fell in love with a book? Maybe you tumbled down a rabbit hole, or flew out of your bedroom window, or found the key to a secret garden? And in the silence of that moment, your whole life changed forever.
The stories we read as children matter. The best ones are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past – collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream up different futures. More vivid, more affecting than books we read mere months ago, our childhood reading might just be the making of us.
The first general history of canonic literature written for children through the ages, from Aesop’s Fables to Malorie Blackman, The Haunted Wood explores the magic of our most beloved stories, the lasting grip they seem to have on us and the ways in which they define and console entire generations.
Sam Leith is Literary Editor of the Spectator and an author. He has also written extensively for the Guardian, TLS, Financial Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail, and was a judge for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
Elizabeth Garner is a novelist and editor. She has written two novels: Nightdancing, awarded the Betty Trask Award; and The Ingenious Edgar Jones, which was published to critical acclaim in the UK and USA. She has also published a collection of illustrated folk tales: Lost & Found.
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