Children's book meme

[daibhidc]

Memed from cat63



1: What is your favourite children's book?

Tricky. The Hobbit has to be up there. I also have fond memories of Rosemary Manning's Dragon series. And The Weirdstone of Brisingham. And The BFG. And Wee Free Men (yes, I know it was published when I was 27, what's your point?)

2: What book scared / scarred you as a child?

The Owl Service. Unlike Weirdstone I never did finish it.

3: Name a recent children's author who you wish had been writing when you were a child.

Neil Gaiman. (I would have said Pterry, but actually he wrote his first children's book before I was born; I just didn't know about it until after I'd discovered his adult work.)

4: If you could pair an illustrator and children's author, who would they be?

Dave McKean doing Alan Garner might be fun. Highly disturbing, but fun.

5: Your [hypothetical] children reach puberty and don't really like reading but are willing to try something at your suggestion; what do you pick and why?

Terry Pratchett. Although I wouldn't wait for puberty. (I managed to make my neice a Discworld fan before she could read! She's now halfway through The Wintersmith.)

6: What's the first book you bought with your own money?

Probably a Doctor Who novelisation.

7: Did you sneakily read books that would have been disapproved of by your family? What did you think of them?

I can't imagine a book being disapproved of by my family, unless it espoused a particularly scary political theory (and even then, my Dad would probably have been interested in discussing it with me, rather than telling me not to read it). My Mum was a bit concerned that I was reading too much SF&F and not enough everything else, but it was her bookshelf I was working through so she couldn't protest too much...

Comments

[cat63.livejournal.com]

And The Weirdstone of Brisingham.

That one holds up quite well to rereading, I thought. The bit where they nearly get stuck in the tunnels under Alderley Edge is quite scary to me now, although it bothered me far less as a sprog. Did you ever read the sequel, Moon of Gomrath?

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

I did, yes. That was a bit spookier, I thought, or maybe I was older and more easily spooked.

[thisbluespirit]

Nice meme!

And the idea of Dave McKean illustrating Garner is rather a fabulous one. If I knew any children's publishers better than I do, I'd be making the suggestion.