posted on 19 Feb 2023

Bookworm: a memoir of childhood reading by Lucy Mangan

In the good old days when I still used to wander up to the newsagents every morning to buy a paper copy of The Guardian, the columns written by Lucy Mangan used to be one of my must-read items – second only to Steve Bell’s political cartoons. I stopped buying the newspaper as its editorial position drifted and the price continued to rise as the format shrank - but I retain fond memories of Mangan’s articles and the sensibility behind them.

Bookworm is a sort of combined early years autobiography and a eulogy to the children’s books that built the girl and the woman. Although the book is loosely structured chronologically – we get to see Mangan’s reading development set alongside a discursive and often humorous survey of the great children’s literature as it too developed. 

This isn’t the work of an academic or literary historian – it’s perhaps much better thought of as an extended love letter to the books that accompanied the young Lucy through the task of growing up. Unlike her much more scientifically-inclined and hands-on younger sister and a mother who was also largely interested in practicalities, Mangan was all about reading, books and the world of the imagination. She gobbled up books, she devoured authors and all she wanted was to be left alone to follow her fictional favourites.

The book tumbles along at a pace – there are no footnotes, references or irritating theoretical interruptions – and ultimately this is like reading a feature writer let loose to do her own thing. There’s plenty of light-hearted observation of family life and lots of affection here too – she disparages her sister and mother but always with deep-seated affection and her father, much more indulgent and scatty, is clearly the apple of her eye. 

Mangan is splendidly opinionated – she doesn’t hold back on the things she loves but isn’t worried about knocking over a few shibboleths. Tolkien gets a bit of a hiding but Enid Blyton who is so often denigrated now gets a glowing report. Katheryn Hughes reviewing the book for The Guardian back in 2018 noted:

"….how right Mangan is to insist on restoring the benighted Enid Blyton to her proper place in the canon. Blyton’s range may have been limited – although it might be truer to say that her range was oceanic, who else could do pixies and public school girls? – but she bestowed an incalculable gift on many young readers who did not have access to a dictionary, or the attention of a well-qualified teacher. These children were given reliable tools to help them navigate their way through a book with confidence and pleasure. It was like being handed the code that, one day, could be used to unlock the richer, riskier world of adult reading."

And, under cover of her observations about her middle-class childhood, her reading preferences and her family dynamics, Mangan smuggles in some substantial but accessible history. She sketches out the vital role the setting up of civic libraries has played in extending literacy and giving children like her access to books that would never have been discovered without them.

To be honest, I found the book a touch too long and the tone begins to pall after the first couple of hundred pages but despite that, this really is a book that will be irresistible to lovers of children’s literature. If it doesn’t send you off to reread some old favourites, I’d be very surprised.

Paperbacks are easily available new and second hand and you’ll pay well under £10 for a copy.

 

Terry Potter

February 2023