What I find interesting as I recall books that I loved deeply as a child is that a single thread emerges--
I have an abiding sense of profound sadness that they were only stories... I wanted them to be REAL. More than that, I wanted to BE the character in the story of the most compelling of them.I wanted desperately to
be Sam or Frodo. I wanted to
be Ford Prefect, Claudia, Nancy Drew, or Pip.
Michaela's post made me realize that inside me somewhere, there is still a heartbroken little girl that desperately wishes that she had a scruffy friend named Curdie, or that she could truly escape into a time-portal in the garden behind her house. (I can't remember the name of that book, but it was one of my very favorites.)
It made me unbearably sad that they weren't real. There is a part of me that still associates that sensation with some books, which is how that I know that I was under about twelve when I read them the first time; after that, I was more resigned to fiction being-- well, fiction.
The conversation has reminded me of an event that
completely blindsided me with respect to DD, too. I won't take this one so far OT, though.
