Children's Books

So clearly last week when I promised a book review post, I overestimated my reading speed.

Or perhaps I simply underestimated how much I would have to do this week.

It’s a cliché to say I was very busy but given the fact I’m moving to university a week today I feel I have adequate reason to use that excuse.

I’m really excited to go to uni, but every time I look around myself at home, another five jobs pop up. Not to mention the fact that I want to see everyone up here before I go back since I won’t see them until December; an impossible task it would seem.

I know I don’t necessarily need to do all the jobs before I head to uni, but there are a few I’d like to say I’ve completed by the time I go back. The most satisfying of which was probably sorting through all my childhood books and building some new bookshelves for them.

The story behind this particular task I’ve undertaken goes back a few years:

When I was younger, the tall bookshelf in my bedroom (which you can probably see in the background of a fair few of my Instagram posts - @roxyelle01) was filled with most of my favourite books. Whether they were the stories that my mum used to read to me before bed when I couldn’t read for myself, or my own ever-growing collection of novels as I got older.

All of them managed to cram their way onto the bookshelf.

It was only when I realised that the bookshelf no longer had any available space and was indeed overflowing into the rest of the room that I knew I had to change things.

So, painstakingly, I went through every book on the shelf and asked myself whether it was something I was likely to read again soon. If not, as with most of the stories that were directed at a certain age group I was no longer a part of, the books were taken from the shelf and placed in various boxes to go upstairs.

The bookshelf in my room was then filled up again with all the books that are age appropriate. My bookshelf couldn't be more me in all honest; it's practically a shrine to all the books and authors which I love and have changed my life in some shape or form. I have a shelf dedicated to the various texts I’ve studied over the years (only my favourites – those of you who studied it with me know I would never allow the likes of the Handmaid’s Tale to take up space on my bookshelf), my Agatha Christie collection, my Shakespeare collection, and my Harry Potter set. I also have a shelf purely of notebooks – I suppose that as a writer I have due cause for that ;)

But what of the books that went upstairs? For a few years, given I didn’t have the time or the patience to go through them, they sat upstairs in piles, out of sight and out of mind.

Until recently.

During lockdown, as most people did, I took the time to have a bit of reshuffle and thorough spring clean of my bedroom. The rejig granted me some free space, which sent me upstairs to find some items that could come back into my room for the first time in years.

My search reminded me of all the books that were just hanging around up there, right next to bookshelves, never having been sorted properly.

And so that is what I resolved to do.

Although it would be a difficult and time-consuming task, I knew I’d enjoy it. I don’t know what it is about sorting through books that is so satisfying, but it’s probably one of my favourite things to do. Then again, organising and sorting of any kind always pleases the OCD side of me.

Looking through these books the past few days has been a major trip down memory lane for me. Most of these books shaped my childhood. Shaped the way I see the world even.

When you’re a child, you don’t realise that almost every book you read has some kind of lesson in it, but we instinctively pick up these lessons and apply them in our daily lives. It’s something so simple and yet so vital to the people we become.

I rooted through, finding books that I had loved, remembering reading them thousands of time over. Like a book about fairy shopping that I remember begging my mum to read over and over again at bedtime. Or some “Sprinters” collection novels I remember being some of the first books I ever read; in particular one “Lady Long-Legs” by Jan Mark, which, being a tall child, I’d always related to.

And of course, there was a fair helping of books which I barely remembered or couldn’t recall at all. Some were books I simply hadn’t liked as much as the others, or ones I hadn’t liked at all. There were even a few I don’t think I had ever read as for some stubborn reason or another, I’d taken against them – not uncommon with me as a child (or in general really).

The books stretched over years, from when I learned to read all the way up to when I left primary school. Each book had meant something different to me at some stage in my life, and reflecting on that was quite profound.

My favourite part of the sorting was when I came across mum’s old books. She has some beautiful editions; I came across a gorgeous Rudyard Kipling book and several children’s books like Enid Blyton.

There’s nothing like an old book. The way they smell, the delicate pages. As far as I’m concerned, they’re usually far more beautiful than newer editions. In their own right, before you even consider the literature inside, old books, on a dusty bookshelf, are a work of art. They have their own story to tell before you even open the front cover. They've lived a life before you owned them, and that's what makes them all the more special. That's why I liked second-hand book markets and shops so much - they sell much more than books; they sell an experience.

I digress; it wasn’t easy to sort through the stacks and stacks of books I’d managed to collate over my childhood. As there were far too many to keep them all, I had to contemplate the awful task of sifting and sorting which ones to keep and which ones to get rid of. Anyone who loves books as much as I do will know that it seems almost sacrilegious to throw out a book.

Somehow, I finished the job. All the books are now in situ, and I managed to limit the amount of books going out as much as possible to the ones that I definitively knew wouldn’t be of any future use.

I feel contented with the knowledge that it’s all done and ready now; hindsight being a wonderful thing, I had left the job far too long as it is.

Why am I telling you all this? Maybe perhaps with the ever-nearing date of uni, I’m feeling a little nostalgic? Or maybe I just like talking about books too much? Personally, I think both are true.

A reader asked last week what kind of books I liked to read before I started on murder mysteries and romances. At the time, I didn’t have an answer, as I couldn’t really remember. The only book series I distinctly remember was a series of historical novels surrounding the life of a girl in 18th century England.

But as I glanced through my collections over the past few days, I have found an answer for you; it appears that I was a fan of magic novels. Tales of fairies, witches, trolls, sprites, magic – anything magical.

As soon as I was looking at the books again, it made perfect sense and the memories all came back. I remember loving “The Magic Faraway Tree” series by Enid Blyton particularly; I believe I read both the original and the modern version of the books.

Nowadays, as I was saying to my friend last night, I’m more of a supernatural reader, but the idea of magic appeals to me, and it made me smile to think that it always has. I’ve always thought that my taste in novels became quite specifically different from my childhood favourites reasonably quickly, which I suppose is true, but it’s nice to think that those books I read did leave a lasting impact on me.

And so, now as I have placed them all on their appropriate shelves, they will have a nice place to wait until they are needed again.

I hope that one day they will once more bring as much joy to someone as they did to me.

#childrensbooks #childhood #bookshelves #sorting #roxyelle