The Book that Made Me

by Various

  What was left to me were over a hundred of the young Reg French’s war letters to his mother and sisters. And so I have his copperplate handwriting and the voice of a man barely out of his teenage years. I have his stories of life on the ground at an air base in Northern England, as well as his life in the air, a wireless operator in a Lancaster Bomber. Reg flew thirty-six missions over Europe; and because the attrition rate in Bomber Command was so high he was lucky to have survived. On the ground, the Balicki children and thousands of others like them, suffered many privations but were also lucky to have survived among so many deaths. The Silver Sword provided a neat parallel to a slice of my family history. And seeing me reading this book – and the other World War II stories and historical accounts I went on to read throughout my high school years – I think my father saw that despite what I considered to be his shortcomings as a parent, that I understood and appreciated the young years he had sacrificed to fight in a war in a place far from home; that I was interested in delving into not only history, but also into his head and heart. I wanted to know a little of who my father had once been, and how a war had changed who he later became.

  The Silver Sword will always position itself thus in my reading life. Even the mere sighting of its spine among the many others on the bookshelf takes me to the landscapes – geographic and familial – that I’ve described. And The Silver Sword has in its own special way, taken me everywhere in the years across my subsequent life as a writer.

  Only White People Lived in Books

  Catherine Johnson

  We didn’t have many books at home. The Encyclopaedia Britannica that my parents bought with the saved-up emergency-plane-fare-to-Jamaica fund, the Bible, some Welsh-language novels and a few books of poetry by Caribbean writers.

  But I had a library ticket and I was lucky with my timing; I was born in the early sixties, just when Dr Seuss was making his way east across the Atlantic.

  I owe him pretty much everything when it comes to words.

  I think because my mother’s first language was Welsh, she had very little knowledge of English children’s books and neither did my Jamaican dad, who’d had a short, if classical, English education: Shakespeare and Wordsworth, but not E Nesbit or Kenneth Grahame. So the books that were my own were, like me, from the second half of the twentieth century. I still have the well-beloved and dog-eared, battered hardbacks of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham.

  Those books, read to me at bedtime, taught me to read. They must have done, because I can never remember not reading. I could read before I went to school; it was one of those things that came naturally, like breathing. I was very, very lucky. There are plenty of things I can’t do; most of them involve throwing and catching and maths.

  I have to admit I have an order of liking. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish comes first. The page at the back with Clark (who lived in the park) was so scary I had to sometimes skip it. But the Zans and Zeds, and Mike who was on hand to get the bike up hills (How I could use a Mike on my bike!) are still as heavily imprinted on me as the feeding of the five thousand. (I had a little hardback Bible story of that.)

  After One Fish comes Green Eggs and Ham. I felt a well of empathy for poor Sam I Am desperately trying to get his green eggs and ham eaten, and I loved the precipitous railways and the fox in a box and the mouse in a house.

  The Cat in the Hat was most annoying. The Cat is spoiled, he doesn’t listen, and he’s such a terrible show-off.

  But those wonderful rhyming picture books opened the door to a deep love, in my young self, of rhyming poetry. I can remember, age five or six, receiving for Christmas not the pony that I dreamed of but Louis Untermeyer’s The Golden Treasury of Poetry. (Who is Louis Untermeyer? Should I Google him? Will I be disappointed?) There were line drawings on every other page – the flag-draped skull from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was always scary. And I found the stylised fat-cheeked children illustrating “Isabel Jones and Curabel Lee” horrible in a different sort of way. I didn’t like their eyes or cheeks and had to turn the page quickly there too.

  My favourite poem was “The Ballad of Beth Gelert”, about Prince Llewellyn’s dog Gelert who is killed by accident. It was very long and very tragic. I would recite this – reciting was big in Welsh households – although it must have been wearisome for my poor parents as it was so very long. Perhaps I had more in common with the show-off Cat in the Hat than I would admit.

  From classics to funny verse. Spike Milligan was famous off the telly and his book Silly Verse for Kids was one I bought with my own money. I found it recently when we moved house and didn’t like it half as much as I remembered it. Although I can still remember poems from that book too.

  And after Spike Milligan came Edward Lear. Another Christmas, another poetry compendium, all of the limericks and poems. I can still do “The Owl and the Pussycat” off by heart, and parts of “The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs”:

  “… Must we drag on this stupid existence for ever,

  So idle and weary, so full of remorse,–

  While every one else takes his pleasure, and never

  Seems happy unless he is riding a horse?”

  Novels, storybooks, came later, although there is one highly coloured collection of fairytales I liked, A4 sized and hardbacked, with swan princes flying past a tower, and a history book with an illustration of Queen Mathilda on a very luxurious snowy white horse.

  The first novel I remember that was chosen and paid for with pocket money was Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson. I bought it in Aberystwyth on a particularly boring holiday. Then there were the Edward Eager books Half Magic and Magic by the Lake, set in pre-World War II America, about a single-parent family of three children who are poor – but not so poor that they don’t have servants – and who happen upon a wish-giving magic coin. I remember distinctly liking the fact that one of the children was called Katherine, even though, to my mind, she spelled her name wrong.

  Our schoolteacher in what would now be Years Five and Six – Mrs Salter, thank you very much – read to us in the afternoon. We would sit on the hard parquet floor and she would read loads of stories. One I can remember hating at the time is Emil and the Detectives, although I have since read it and think it’s fantastic. I don’t know why that didn’t click – was it a hot summer and hard to keep still? Maybe it was the lack of girls.

  I also remember being steered towards Leon Garfield’s books and not enjoying them either. I know it was pig-headedness on my part; I can remember standing in the book corner and looking at the crosshatching on the covers and putting the books back. Can I apologise for my stubborn ten-year-old self and say that as an adult I rate him as one of my favourite authors?

  The only other novels I remember reading were a few Secret Sevens and Noel Streatfeild’s Gemma, which I bought because the girl on the cover had great boots and the colours of that cover were really modern – acid green and brown and orange (it was the ’70s). I did read Ballet Shoes too, and how I wished wished, wished to be genteelly poor and super talented. But my default reading was the Armada Book for Girls, nonfiction, useful facts, and a lot of Things to Make and Do-style books. I also coveted my brother’s books about Native Americans – full of how to make feather headdresses and full-size teepees, how to carve reproduction buffalo horns from wood and step-by-step outlines of all the dances, although I don’t think we ever made anything at all.

  I liked stories from the cinema and from the TV. I loved The Amazing Mr Blunden and the Sunday afternoon serials like The Little Princess (I cried buckets). We would play those stories in school and there would always be an argument about who I would be. There was never anyone dark skinned enough …

  Is that why I sort of gave up on novels? I wonder. I never ever expected to see myself in a book. When I was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, unbelievable as it seems now, I didn’t know any other mixed-race kids – even in London we were rarer than hen’
s teeth. There was another black kid in my year, and there were Greek Cypriot kids and Jewish kids, but mixed race? Nope, nuh-uh, no way.

  And anyway everyone back then knew only white people lived in books and had adventures. Even if there were black children, or dark-skinned ones, you wouldn’t want to be them, they were at best the stupid sidekick or at worst the enemy. Magic only happened to white kids, only white kids rode ponies or sailed boats or went back in time or wore fantastic dresses. In late sixties/early seventies London, these were inalienable and unassailable truths. Who would want to play being black? After all, it was one more steep storybook rung below – horror of horror – being a useless girl.

  I didn’t start reading children’s books again until I was at college: all the Noel Streatfeilds, all the pony books, all the adventure and magic books. E Nesbit, then Nina Bawden – I’d seen Carrie’s War on telly – and Alan Garner – The Owl Service, I’d seen that on telly too. Jan Mark, and right up to date with Jacqueline Wilson and Aidan Chambers. I didn’t start writing myself until ten years later, but when I did, I made sure to put children like me right in there, riding horses, wearing those amazing frocks, and mostly having adventures, just like everyone else.

  Set My Senses Alight

  Sue Lawson

  When I was growing up, our family had “treasures” that were to be treated with reverence: the vase Dad gave Mum before they were married; my grandfather’s massive carved, wooden chair, not unlike a king’s throne; a rare photo of my mum’s father; Dad’s stuffed pheasant. And books.

  Not any particular book; all books.

  Books were as much a part of our lives as food, water and sunshine.

  While I can remember lectures when playing, or later vacuuming, near Papa’s chair and threats of death or worse if I strayed near that poor bird forever frozen mid-step, I don’t remember my parents ever spelling out that books had to be treated with respect. We four kids just knew they were treasures, filled with adventures, incredible worlds, new friends and old.

  In the evening, while we watched television, Dad would read – book in his left hand, cigarette in his right.

  Friday afternoons, Mum took us to the local library to borrow five books each. The memory of the weight of the library door, the smell of books and the warmth of the sunshine streaming through the windows onto the children’s book display are still vivid.

  At home, we had a small room called “The Den”, which at various times was a television room, a kids’ playroom and a bedroom.

  When it was a TV room and playroom, I loved The Den. Not because of the closeted, safe feeling, the cool stonework surrounding the fireplace or the front door that opened onto the rose- and camellia-filled garden.

  I loved The Den because of the built-in, ceiling-to-floor bookshelves either side of the fireplace.

  From the mantelpiece down on the left-hand side were “our” books – picture books, novels, nursery rhymes and poetry. There were books by Enid Blyton, AA Milne, May Gibbs, Dorothy Wall, Dr Seuss, Lewis Carroll, Susan Coolidge, Bill Peet, Beatrix Potter and many more.

  The shelves above these held Mum and Dad’s coffee table books. A heavy tome filled with photos of JFK’s life, Banjo Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda, Australia’s Heritage and all manner of gardening books.

  The right-hand side of the fireplace was overflowing with adult books: Flashman, Bond, shooting and cricket books, plus a few racy Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins books. Harold and Jackie were relegated to the very top shelf. (Accessible if you stood on the arm of the easy chair and held the mantelpiece for balance. Of course, I’m guessing that’s the manoeuvre. I’d never do anything as evil as that.)

  If ever I was stupid enough to use the word “bored” around Mum or Dad, I was directed to The Den to read.

  If it was too wet to play in the garden or around the farm, I’d sit, back against the front door, and read.

  If I needed to escape from whatever family or sibling trouble was brewing, I retreated to The Den to select a book.

  I am who I am today because of those books, particularly.

  Farewell to Shady Glade by Bill Peet introduced me to the importance of our environment. I returned to Milton Shulman’s Preep: The Little Pigeon of Trafalgar Square again and again, even as a teenager, for the comfort it provided. Nancy Drew’s adventures showed me girls could be daring, clever and still, well, girls. Dr Seuss introduced me to the idea that words and nonsense were fun, except for The Cat in the Hat. That cat’s antics stressed me out.

  Leon Uris’s QB VII and Mila 18 taught me empathy and showed me the best and worst of humanity. However, deciding to read them in the lead-up to my Third Form (Year Nine) biology exam instead of actually studying wasn’t my wisest choice.

  My first love was a book character – Sodapop from The Outsiders, by SE Hinton. After I finished reading John Irving’s The World According to Garp, I knew I wanted to, no, needed to write. I can remember when I finished the book, I dragged my portable Olivetti typewriter out from under the bed and bashed out a letter to Irving. I never did send it, but I do remember typing that his book, the characters, particularly Garp, and the way Irving used words had left me awed and reawakened my forgotten love of writing. Somewhere between graduating as a teacher and reading Garp, bands and music had absorbed me. Garp was a reminder of the power of story.

  However, the book that not only inspired, terrified and enthralled me but also changed me is the Australian young adult novel, Displaced Person by Lee Harding.

  I can’t remember how I stumbled upon it in the school library. Perhaps the librarian Mrs Pelcan directed me to it, or maybe I spied it when I was gossiping with friends between the fiction shelves. What I do know is that I’ve never forgotten how that book made me feel and how it has influenced how I write.

  Displaced Person is about seventeen-year-old Graeme Drury, an ordinary kid doing ordinary things in Melbourne, and more specifically, St Kilda.

  Graeme is doing okay at school, has friends and a girlfriend, and is as happy as any teenager is at home.

  However, Graeme starts to notice his friends at school, people on the street, tram conductors, and McDonalds staff just don’t see or hear him. Eventually, even his girlfriend and parents look straight through him. In no time Graeme’s friends, girlfriend and parents live their lives as though he never existed. Graeme also realises that not only are people unable to see or hear him, but the world around him is fading to grey. He stumbles across the occasional object and a few people, and discovers he, like them, is displaced.

  I won’t tell you any more or I’ll ruin the story, and honestly, you need to read it.

  It certainly wasn’t the first book to move me, I mean I fell in love reading The Outsiders, Mila 18 showed me the astounding resilience of the human spirit and Lord of the Flies taught me the importance of being true to your own principles even in the face of great danger.

  But Displaced Person was something else again. This was a story about my world, and about me. It felt like it had been written for me. The places Graeme went, including the “displaced” houses, were familiar. I could picture the streets around St Kilda and the houses with gum trees and rosesbushes bowed under the weight of their blooms. I could smell the ocean and hear the seagulls as they squabbled on St Kilda beach. The book set my senses alight.

  Though I’d read dozens of Australian books before, Displaced Person was something else. Sure, when I read Seven Little Australians, I imagined the paddocks to be like our own, and every koala at Halls Gap made me think of Blinky Bill and mayhem – but while I was reading Displaced Person, the connection felt more “real”.

  For the first time, a book reached right into me and addressed my deepest fear – that I was insignificant, so ordinary, that if I disappeared no one would notice or miss me. It reflected my feeling that I was unable to impact, change or influence the world around me.

  Displaced Person evoked an emotional response that I still feel when I think of the book. That is th
e power of a great story.

  Perhaps my reaction to the book says more about the insecure, angst-ridden teenager I was, but even if that is the case, this book changed how I read and wrote.

  Prior to reading Displaced Person my stories were superficial in the sense that I never crawled beneath my characters’ skin.

  After reading Lee Harding’s book, throughout my twenties and between seeing bands at pubs – oh and teaching – I began experimenting, trying different points of view, structure and style. I began writing about difficult emotions – death, anxiety, depression and belonging – from deep inside my characters. For a while I even tried writing poetry, but I quickly discovered, while I love reading poetry, I truly suck at writing it.

  Trust me, none of these stories and especially the poems were fantastic. In fact, I remember them as being pretty damn ordinary and filled with purple prose. But they were the beginnings of my writing journey, the spark that influenced how I write even now. Though at the time, I had no idea of the book’s far-reaching effect, all I knew was I loved it.

  It’s only now, as an older and wiser writer, that I recognise and understand the profound effect Displaced Person has had upon my writing and the topics I tackle.

  I don’t write science fiction, but I do write realism and tackle meaty topics like depression, grief and death in You Don’t Even Know, the extensive impact of mental illness in Pan’s Whisper, and racism and acceptance in Freedom Ride.