posted on 29 Nov 2015

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Patricia Craig

This is a little marvel of a book: in fact, it’s at least four books in one. It is a memoir of childhood, a hymn of praise to the books that shaped her childhood, a paean to the public library system and a rather more serious snapshot of Belfast from the 50s through to the 70s.

Craig is a serious scholar of children’s literature but there’s nothing stuffy or elitist about her approach to the books she loves. From the earliest years she is besotted by books and when she is introduced to the glories of the local library, her love blossoms into something quite wonderful. Craig’s descriptions of her reading progress - through Rupert, Enid Blyton, William and on to Angela Brazil – paints not only a picture of her 1950s childhood but is inextricably linked to her life and her family in Belfast before the Troubles.  

Craig is very much a product of her times and of her library and this book is as much a campaigning document as it is a memoir. Speculating about the growth of violence in her community she sees a link between the role of reading and imagination and the desire for peace and security. In short, she argues, people who read and love books don’t grow up wishing to inflict violence on others. It is, I think, an arguable thesis and rather too simplistic for my taste but I do entirely understand the point she’s trying to make. The cosiness and security she associates with reading and getting lost in fiction are real and tangible to those of us who have followed a similar path – and almost impossible to reproduce when we get older and the constraints of the adult world invade our space.

I also like the way she sees comics as a critical part of her development as a reader – that was true for me too. One of the really delightful anecdotes in this book relates to her love of the School Friend comic and her excitement when it was delivered through the letterbox each week. Her mother, father and grandmother all tried to get hold of the comic before Craig herself got to it and it wasn’t until much later that she realised they did this solely to heighten her thrill at winning the race.

Her love of reading has translated itself in her adult years into her academic persona and her subsequent pursuit of the literary genres that so enthralled her. She collaborated with Mary Cadogan to produce You’re A Brick, Angela! The Girls Story 1839 – 1985 and she has become a self-confessed collector of both the books and the comics that saturated her childhood. Towards the end of this short but multi-layered little book, Craig talks about what it’s like to be a collector and her stories of incredible collecting luck are a real joy for me. I can entirely relate to the feelings she has as she stumbles on a transient book- cum- junk shop that sells her a complete collection of first edition Helen Oxenham school girl novels or her luck at being in the right place at the right time to inherit another set of rare collectibles.

I don’t expect that this book is going to get wide exposure and I’m not expecting to see it on Waterstones tables over Christmas – and I think that’s a shame. This is a slyly deceptive book that lures you in with nostalgia and warmth, hits you with a serious message about the role of libraries in our society and tries to link books and the love of books to the real politics of community. It’s a book well worth hunting down and committing a quiet afternoon to in front of the fire with lashings of hot toast and ginger beer.

 

Terry Potter

November 2015