Growing up in books
Heya !
If you’ve been here for a while now, it shouldn’t be unknown to you that I received the gift of reading from my godmother at an early age. Therefore, I wanted to share with you which books significantly impacted a certain stage of younger me.
Please do share yours in the comments, i’d love to know ! xx
Let’s start with the beggining, shall we ?
My godmother had all the collection of « Les aventures de Tintin » by Hergé. They’re where my reading journey began; She would read one of my choosing to me and give each of the characters a different voice.
Later, when I was able to read by myself, I would go sleep at her house and read them. My favorites and most read was « Les Bijoux de la Castafiore » and «Le secret de la licorne / Le trésor de rhackam le rouge »
* They’ve been translated in english as « The adventures of Tintin ».
Next, « The Spiderwick chronicles ». I was in 7th or 8th grade when I stambled upon thoses books with torn hedges, in our recently built bookstore at the time, and was sold ! I will admit I don’t quite remember all of what happen anymore .. but I was a huge fan back then and am kinda scared of re-reading them in case I don’t like it anymore .. ahaha.
Back in the day, I reread them a good ten times, probably? I also own Arthur Spiderwick’s field guide and was soo pissed when the movie came out ahah.. Classic case of a reader being dissapointed of all that wasn’t taken from the book into the movie.. however, I still find it an okay movie and will watch it again if it plays in front of me.
High school can be devided in two, really, so let’s begin with « Le journal d’Aurélie Laflamme». What, a series of 8 books ?? yep, you looked right.. this is the one and only book series I own and read ; I got the two first ones approximately in 8th grade when I went to a “Book Salon” with my godmother, and I was impatiently waiting for the next ones to come out ! Last one in the series was published in 2013 – so I was in my first year of college… That serie was in my life in a total of 5years (all of high school, and then the last one a year after graduating) !
I reread all of them even more than I did the Spiderwick Chronicles, specially when I knew the next one would come out; i’d start with the 1st novel, up until the xth one before the “newly released”. over and over. Being a french Québécois book, they never got translated in english (as far as I know) ; The books are basically the diary of a girl going to a private high school, up until her grad year in the last one, finishing with her prom.
I recognised myself strongly with Aurélie, as she was just as clumsy as I was ! However, moving into a bilingual town, I only knew one other girl (which I befriended, of course !) that was as much of a fan of thoses like I was. You know, people back then were really NOT into reading and looked at me wierdly for even reading for fun.. 😂 but even more, although we went to a french school, teens were more into english stuff.. so yeahh.
Second part, alongside of « Le journal D’aurélie Laflamme », thoses also played a big role – although maybe not as much as the previous ones.
« 178 secondes » was actually a 10th grade french class’ read, our teacher even got the Author to come and speak to us ! I went and got her autograph ahah but my classmates were not as much liking it nor the author’s speech as I did .. teens of this age can be brats ..
« Quand souffle le vent du nord », also known as Love virtually (which I reviewed on here !!) was a first read in my last year of high school. I remember reading it in my french classes after a test or something – and going as far as to go up to my teacher and ask her what a word meant !! hahah when I last read it, I remembered exactly one word that I did that to it.. got reread several time aswell and stayed in my favorite books since that moment. It was just love at first read !
Lastly, The Guillaume Musso’s. It started when one was in the choices of what we could choose for a school work for another french class. Loved his way of writting so much that I just kept going and read more thrillers of him ! Up until this day, I cannot resist buying all of his books I don’t own yet and stood upon ahaha although I kind of grew out of him and no longer consider him my favorite author of all time – but he did had an impact on me.
And that’s all ! Of course I read other things than thoses mentionned, but thoses are the ones I remember the most and that I own on my shelves.
Honorary position to « Dear dumb diary » that I unfortunately got rid off, but that I got all the books up to the 6th or 7th. I grew off of thoses and just went “meh, im too old …” and didn’t continued getting the later released.
When did you started reading ?
Do you have special books that remind you of your first couple of years of being a reader ?