Happy World Book Day! Let’s Get Nostalgic

April 23rd, as my lovely Penguin Writing group reminded me, is World Book Day! It’s also Shakespeare’s Birthday (more on my nerding out about that later).

In the last week or two, I feel like I’ve had more conversations about books than I have in AGES (outside of writing them and slamming my head into my keyboard begging for words to happen). I chatted with a lovely vendor at the Renaissance Faire about my books. A discord server I’m in brought up books from our youth we loved. My niece just finished one of the Mistborn books and spent almost an hour talking to my spouse about it. Another server had a rant session about books and authors, and how they get classified (we’re firmly in Camp: Redwall is High Fantasy, and will die on this hill).

I know, as an author, books surround me, but, like, dang y’all.

So I got to thinking about the nostalgia factor of books and stories. What got us into reading? What were some of the formative stories from our childhood? Was there a person who influenced this even further?

I’ve mentioned before that books and reading have always been a big part of my life. My parents highly encouraged it; there’s many photos of me with a book in my hand growing up. I did readathons, blew through my allowance on Scholastic Book fairs, and maxed out my checkouts at the library. My mom packed books to keep me entertained on long rides, something I do for myself to this day. Reading was just always there. It was always an option, and a highly nurtured one.

A balloon AND a book? I was one happy, entertained toddler

Formative books are tricky, because I know I’ve read a LOT, but narrowing down to things that shaped me isn’t easy.

• Animorphs: this was the first big SERIES I ever got into, and I loved animals, so this was the coolest. Also might’ve been my first book-crush? Oh Tobias, so dreamy, even if you were stuck as a hawk most of the time.
• The Hobbit and LOTR: I read these surprisingly young and back-to-back. Definitely seeded my love of fantasy.
• Greek Myths: there was a child-friendly collection at my library I checked out with my best friend. Fell in love with myth and folklore because of it.
• Sabriel: she was my first literary heroine, and seeing my nieces fall in love with her makes me want to reread it.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: got introduced to it in a weird, theater kid way. Immediately borrowed it from a friend. Remains one of my favorite pieces of sci-fi.
• Shakespeare: doing Shakespeare got me into reading Shakespeare, which got me into reading “classical” literature, and falling in love with Austen and Doyle and Poe, etc.

My middle school theater teacher started every year putting the 6th graders in a play that taught you about Shakespeare. A “modern student” would explain the plays and history to the audience while being “helped” by characters from those plays. Learning, performing, and reading Shakespeare taught me a lot. English classes felt a little easier to me when it came time to analyze texts, because I already had to for performing. Classics weren’t daunting, because I already read at least a dozen of his plays by the time I was 14. Is his work the be-all-end-all, highbrow literature? Absolutely not (ye olde dick jokes, anyone?). But it IS influential and impactful. All the TV and movie adaptations, all the jokes in kids’ movies inspired by it… the Bard gets around.

Me, 13 years old, in a Shakespeare competition as Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. I cannot recall why we decided I needed to be a cowgirl, but I wasn’t complaining.

A lot of my love for Shakespeare is nostalgic love; it came to me at a formative time in my life. So did Tolkien and Harry Potter and Marvel comics. All these things and more certainly shaped who I am as a person, even if that person has since grown and changed.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended…

Happy World Book day and happy birthday Willy. Tell me about one of your favorite childhood books or rag on the Bard a bit in the comments!

(and speaking of books, don’t forget, Fireworks and Flirtations comes out May 18th!)