Lucy Mangan leads readers through a long distance reading journey with map, compass and excellent orienteering skills
Oh heavens, I didn’t want to get to Journey’s End, I really didn’t. This is an utterly delicious romp up hill and down dale through a childhood’s (Lucy’s) adventures between the covers of books.
Now Lucy was born in the 70s. She is not of my generation, so some of her childhood reads were certainly books I had never heard of, never mind read, but I just didn’t care, and chomped up, with equal delight, travels through books known and unknown. She also details experiences (as an adult I assume) with the whole history of childhood reading, indeed the production, the when and the why, of books written for children, whether, as in the high Victorian era, to morally educate and save young souls from temptation, or, – revolutionary, to entertain, to open up worlds, to surrender to with blazing delight.
IF you are a lifelong reader, IF you fell upon being read to with feverish delight and anticipation, but BURNED to take control of this for yourself, IF you still half regret the loss of that falling-in-love with reading, a kind of entrance into Paradise, DO NOT WAIT A MOMENT LONGER – you must have this book, you must read it, like you must draw breath.
This is an utterly joyous journey through the literature of childhood, from the earliest days of putting strange shaped squiggles together and suddenly grasping that c a t (for example) meant something – well, I guess that moment is equal to the moment serious greybeards first began to decode hieroglyphs.
Magic, that’s what
But Mangan is not only a wonderful chronicler of literature for children (the academic analysis) she is brilliantly right there within the experience of the exposure at the time of a child’s reading. She writes with as much joy and gusto as she reads
Pointless to describe the waystations on her journey, but this book is as much to be filed in Humour (she is one gloriously witty woman) as it is in Biography or factual tome about the history of children’s literature
Rarely has a book simultaneously made me laugh out loud so much whilst also educating me
Suffice it to say, Mangan had me, firmly following her guided tour, from this, early comment
Was your first crush on Dickon instead of Johnny Depp? Do you still get the urge to tap the back of a wardrobe if you find yourself alone in a strange bedroom
To which I could only shout YES! YES! Even if Johnny Depp was not yet a crushable entity when I first ‘crushed’ Dickon
Photograph by Romain Veillon from his book Ask the Dust
I was delighted to be offered this as a review copy as a digital ARC, and, have discovered to my delight that Mangan has written other books. WHICH I SHALL BE BUYING.
My only cavil (and I don’t know whether this was purely ‘digital ARC challenge’ or not) is that the author’s delightful habit of footnote and footnote within footnote asides does not work well in the digital format. It would work perfectly on a printed page, where the visual signs of long footnotes can happily spill over several pages without reader confusion.
Lady Fancifull 
Brilliant review of a wonderful book – I had to buy a physical copy after reading the ARC in part to get the best out of those footnotes
That decision doesn’t surprise me one iota. I think this one is going to end up on a lot of ‘best of 2018’ lists
Oh well, everyone is making this sound so wonderful I shall just *have* to track down a physical copy from somewhere!
It is sheer joy Karen, and I can’t think of anyone who has a dedicated book blog because of a lifelong passion for reading, who wouldn’t adore this. Yes, we might argue with her response to this one or that one, but we are not likely to argue with the absolute obsessive delight in reading. She is erudite, witty and clearly loves the texture, taste and shape of the ingredients of reading – WORDS. I adored her precision in word choice, and the one advantage of that digi read was her use of words like choice and precise morsels, which I knew the general meaning of, but her placement and selection made me want to know – okay, precisely what is the meaning of this word I generally understand. Funnily enough, it took me back into those days where one often read, dictionary at hand, and grabbed at new words as if they were rare and precious objects, turning them round, tasting them, smelling them, clutching and feeling them to mine them of everything they were, then proudly offering them up to others. Do not wait a moment for this delightful book, a gratification not to be delayed!
I think it’s safe to say I am firmly in the demographic for this book 🙂
You are, a copy definitely has your name on it somewhere..
Heard so many great things about this book. I haven’t bought it yet but its high on my wish list.
Ali, I would stake fortunes that you will ADORE it
Is this the book that features Milly Molly Mandy? I read an extract and fairly sure it was from this book.
It is indeed!
Sounds like a lovely read – great review!
Thank you Grass and Vanilla; it’s a wonderful read, for sure
I loved this too and am a pretty well exact contemporary, so that was exciting (I even grew up within about 25 miles of her!). I agree about the footnotes but as we know we’re going to have to buy physical copies, that’s OK, isn’t it!
Absolutely – I think this is going to make so many ‘best of my reading year’ lists
Wonderful! Your review and the book. I see that our library has it on order, and I’ve moved it on to my digital shelf. It really was a magic world of reading then – back and forth in time, in and out of various realities. I look forward to a revisit. In fact, I’ve never really fully given up on children’s literature. When my children were young, I stretched my brain by doing some Diploma studies in children’s literature – fascinating and enjoyable.
Like you, I have never really moved out of children’s literature. That place where a reader was utterly grabbed by something which was truly magical. In the main, the adult reader perhaps stands before a book almost daring it to possess them, whereas for the child, possession happens more easily. The imagined world is not subject to a dismissive ‘it’s only a story’