When I was five years old, I read “The Foot Book” by Dr. Seuss to Mrs. Murphy’s kindergarten class. I sat on her very special stool, locking eyes with the teddy bears on the walls. I had more enthusiasm to read to my classmates than I did to turn six, despite my birthday being my favorite day. A formative experience for no one else in that class but a tiny Sarah with bangs and tie-dyed leggings, to be sure. I reflect on this moment a lot, as it reminds me of my childhood hunger for more words. Whether it was a sign on the drive home from cheerleading practice or a Bible story, I needed to know more.
The next year, I sat on my purple square on the rainbow carpet listening intently to Mrs. Miller read “The Magic Treehouse” series by Mary Pope Osborne: Jack and Annie had taken their Magic Treehouse to Camelot. These afternoons watching this all-knowing woman rock back and forth slowly in her rocking chair meant more to me as a child than I knew how to express with words. It felt like I was being let in on a secret that I was too young to know about yet: chapter books.
Before I knew it I was in elementary school. In mine, they had a life-changing concept where you could go to the library by yourself whenever you wanted to. Before this, when I finished my library book as soon as I got home from school, there was no hope. I had to patiently reread until it was my time of the week to go to wonderland again. The elementary school had books and books and books — more than I had ever seen in my life. I was reading constantly. I often went to the library twice a day to switch out books. Geronimo Stilton dominated my reading log, and biographies, mysteries and fantasy followed quickly after I finished off his shelf.
Children’s books define our reading as adults. Whether you loved or hated it as a child, I can almost guarantee you carry the feelings you felt about reading back then with you now. I devoured books quicker than I could eat my turkey and cheese sandwiches. I search for that hunger in every book I read to this day. Maybe you didn’t like reading as a child, but what book made you dislike it? Oftentimes, hardship while reading breeds resentment with every page. Why is that? Because the young version of you thought they could do anything and when reading was difficult, that belief was taken away. Your childhood hope was lost. So, in a way, it did change your life.
These unadvanced novels often go unnoticed as the carriers of the book industry, but without “The Foot Book” I would not be able to read “The Poisonwood Bible,” a novel that changed the course of my adult life. Without these picture books and beginner chapter books, your favorite author would never have been able to form the words of the novel you love so dearly. So why do so many people disregard them as real literature?
Writing children’s books is perceived to be significantly less difficult than writing the next great American novel. The pictures need to be appealing and the plot needs to be simple, void of intricacies that could confuse new readers. For many, this lack of complexity indicates a lack of value, but this belief disregards how books from our childhood shape our view of the world forever.
To me, losing sight of the value of children’s books means one has lost sight of their “childlike wonder,” as the internet calls it. No one wants to grow up, yet the pieces of art that birthed one of the few skills we use every day and remind us of ignorant childhood bliss lie forgotten, dust collecting on a unicorn’s mane, one’s childhood curiosity lying there with it. Never to be seen again, gone with the Goodwill boxes. They “will make someone else very happy one day.” What about how they made you happy that one day?
Even deeper than the nostalgic aspect, recent studies have shown children’s books help kids overcome internal conflicts and encourage good behavior. Stimulating critical thinking and self-responsibility, the developmental benefits of reading as a child never end. Children’s book sales have been steadily increasing since 2020, so the industry isn’t suffering. What I’m getting at is children’s books are for more than parents and children. They are successful for a reason. They are a time machine back to your 9–year–old self’s elation to know more.
I’m not encouraging hoarding every single book your sticky 6-year-old fingers touched, but I am imploring you to think about how the books you read as a child define your journey as a reader today. An industry used as a method to make cash for some and a way to change lives for most has a lasting impact on every aspiring reader. Graham Greene wrote, “Perhaps it is only in childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives. In later life we admire, we are entertained, we may modify some views we already hold, but we are more likely to find in books merely a confirmation of what is in our minds already.” Maybe I’m a fiend for nostalgia, but I’m a fiend for nostalgia with so much childlike wonder that I think 9-year-olds are envious.
Daily Arts Writer Sarah Patterson can be reached at sarahpat@umich.edu.
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