Dec 12, 2003 05:45 PM
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(Updated Dec 12, 2003 05:45 PM)
I grew up in a small town in Assam in the 80s. No TV(except for an annual trek to the one house in the colony which had a Onida, for the men’s wimbledon final.) No restaurants. No nothing. Just lots and lots of books, and boy, am I grateful for that.
We were all into books. My best friend and I had a contest going in the 4th standard. Subject: who would finish reading the famous five books, all 21 of them, first. No marks for guess who won.
Amazingly enough, the books that make it to my top 5 are ones I can still read and enjoy.
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Five Find-Outers by Enid Blyton.
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From Secret Seven and Famous Five, this was a natural progression. The five find-outers were Pip and Bets Hilton, Larry and Daisy Daykin and the chubby Frederic Algernon Trotterville, whose name, conveniently, happens to be an acronym for FAT. Fatty of course is the ringleader, Bets the baby. Of course, one mustn’t forget the little black Scottie, Buster, who trots faithfully through 16 books with the 5. These books are often sidesplittingly funny, thanks to all the pranks played by the 5 on the hapless-ridiculous local Bobby(policeman) Mr. Goon. Fatty’s disguises are stuff of legends. My personal favourites in the series are The Disappearing Cat, The Holly Lane and Tally Ho Cottage.
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Mallory Towers/St.Clairs by Enid Blyton
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For years after reading these books, I begged my mother to send me off to boarding. It’s difficult to separate the 2 series. The adventures of Darrell(Mallory Towers) and the O Sullivan Twins(St.Clairs) include playing tricks at mistress, hilarious French teachers, the excitement of having new girls, adjustment problems, school sports….aah I am tempted to take off and read one right now.
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The Diary of a young girl – Anne Frank
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A moving world war 2 memoir, this book was written by a young German-Jew, Anne Frank living in hiding in Holland. The diary chronicles her experiences from 1942 to 1994, before the Gestapo stormed their hide-out and deported her and her family to a concentration camp. What follows is truly tragic. This is a book that you can read at any age, so if you haven’t done so yet, get a copy!
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Little Woman series – Louisa May Alcott
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Probably a very old fashioned choice for the potter-cool kids of today. The first in the series, Little Women, is a classic tale of 4 sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy in 19th Century America. Their father is away at the Civil war. The 4 sisters and their mother, who have fallen on hard times, go about their daily lives cheerfully. Little women upholds traditional values like honesty and charity, without being preachy. The heroine undoubtedly is Jo, a tomboy who is forever “falling into scrapes”. Together with their neighbour, Laurie, they have a great time. In the subsequent books, Good Wives, Little Men and Jo’s Boys, the sisters get married, have kids and the legacy is carried on…
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Commando Comics
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Achtung! Himmel! Schnell! Schnell! If you heard my sister or me yelling these words, it was not because we were masters of the German tongue, but because we OD-ed on these comics. These comics were set in the second world war and revolved around heroic airforce officers, army sergeants, bad german soldiers(and good german soldiers) all of course fictional. Beautifully written and illustrated, most of us kept our commando comics in cast iron safes – they had a high flicking rate.
Nothing can equal the pleasure of reading a book as a kid. Curled up in a corner, with mango pickle or a bowl of stolen bournevita for company. As you grow older, the concentration and the wonder of it all eludes you. But read these books, and you might just get a glimpse of those wonder years!
