The Haunted Wood: a History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith review – young at heart

A thoughtful, witty and warmhearted journey through children’s literature

If you were lucky enough to grow up loving books, the world of childhood reading may now feel like a lost paradise. I remember mine as a swirl of djinn, trolls, rabbits, pointy-hatted witches, smoking caterpillars, rogue elephants, hot-air balloons, underground rivers, volcanoes, monkeys, treasure-maps and Mississippi rafts, all consumed by me with an uncritical delight that is harder to achieve in adult life.

Delight, as Sam Leith argues in this splendid survey of children’s literature from Aesop to Philip Pullman, lies at the very heart of the genre. A good children’s book thrills its readers with& ripping adventures and strong characters; it evokes mental images that can stay imprinted for ever. It revels in words: think of Dr Seuss’s stories, or Rudyard Kipling’s perfect ear& in lines such as: “Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.” Underlying it all, children’s books tend to remain close to the deep structures of myth, providing a fast track to readerly satisfaction.