by Swetha Ramachandran
[box]It’s an interesting journey that anyone initiated into reading as a child, goes through. We start off with nursery rhymes and pictorial books on the alphabet and then move on to fairy tales and Aesop’s fables. Bang next is the Enid Blyton series of books. Then, comes teenage fiction. Swetha Ramachandran traces the journey that the reading interests of most of us have been through as children and teenagers before finding out what we truly love to read.[/box]It’s an interesting journey that anyone initiated into reading as a child, goes through. We start off with nursery rhymes and pictorial books on the alphabet and then move on to fairy tales and Aesop’s fables. Bang next is the Enid Blyton series of books. Then, comes teenage fiction. Swetha Ramachandran traces the journey that the reading interests of most of us have been through as children and teenagers before finding out what we truly love to read.
Fantasy and magic, war and peace, love and passion, adventure and murder, dreams and ambitions, hope and faith, destruction and desolation; has the world of literature left any genre, any emotion, untouched? From Antonio and Caesar to Miss Marple and Robert Langdon, Anne and Emma to Oliver Twist and Harry Potter, this world has given birth to many an unforgettable character.
Be it science fiction, biographies, mystery novels or romances, the literary world has something for everybody. But before we know what exactly among these that we love to read, almost each one of us, I am sure, would have gone through a typical book reading journey.
As children we foray into reading with nursery rhymes and then move over to Grimm’s fairy tales, Aesop’s fables and Panchatantra. These tales that speak of greedy foxes and selfish cats, conceited young girls and hard hearted stepmothers, are interesting to read and at the same time, tell kids what’s good and what’s bad!
Once done with the fairy tales, it is Enid Blyton’s wonderful books, ranging from mystery novels to fantasy to teenage fiction that come 
into picture. From ‘The Secret Seven’ to ‘Famous Five’ and ‘Five Find-Outers’, Blyton perfectly fits the bill as a children’s author. It has enough action to capture the young minds, much scope for imagination and happy endings that children always look forward to and believe in!
When it comes to fantasy and teenage fiction, Blyton’s ‘The faraway tree’, ‘The boy next door’ and the entire ‘St Clare’s ’and ‘Malory towers’ series (which speak about life at a residential school) make for excellent reads. Such is the impact these books have upon their readers that every girl who has ever read these books would have longed to live in a hostel like the O’Sullivan twins (from St Clare’s) and for a friend and perfect neighbor like Kit (from ‘The boy next door’).
Apart from Enid Blyton, the works of other fiction authors like Louisa May Alcott, L.M.Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett remain all time favorites, especially among girls. The magic about these books that continues to capture young readers till date, decades after being published is that they speak about the simple lives of the protagonists, their tribulations of growing up, facing the world and fulfilling their dreams.
L.M.Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ (and the rest of the six book series) is also one such story that traces the life of a talkative, adorable, kindred girl Anne who finds her dream home and family at Green Gables.
The books have been written in such a beautiful manner that the reader is bound to forget her surroundings and be transported to the picturesque lands of Prince Edward Island (where the story is set) and finally end up becoming a ‘kindred spirit’.
After having read the classics, Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew and Franklin Dixon’s Hardy Boys have always been the books with which every ten-year-old begins the foray into mystery novels. Hundreds of books have been published in these titles, each with a different case and a narration that is capable of winning over the attention of a young reader.
And once in their teens, the works of mystery novel bigwigs like Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Perry Mason, Sidney Sheldon and Dan Brown are sure to fill their book shelves.
At the onset of adolescence, young readers are once again spoilt for choices. Chicklits for girls and a lot of action and adventure flicks for the boys keep making their way to the racks. ‘The Princess Diaries’, a series of nine books by Meg Cabot is a tale about a typical American teenager who is shocked to discover that she is from a royal lineage!
Teenage romances, being a genre that has always attracted adolescents has to it a number of best sellers, the most recent being the ‘Twilight’ series, a four book romantic series that follows the love story between 17-year- old Bella and a vampire named Edward Cullen!
In the science fiction genre, authors like Michael Crichton, Douglas Adams and Arthur.C.Clarke have remained the most popular ones having attracted many a teenager through best sellers like Jurassic Park, the Hitchhiker’s trilogy and A Space Odyssey, etc. Apart from sci-fi books, best sellers like the ‘Lord of The Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter’ series are bound to find a place in any reader’s list!
Be it taking baby steps towards reading with a colourful alphabet book or getting lost in the pages of a book after becoming a bookworm, reading is an experience that one who has discovered the magic of words will never grow tired of. The fat, black letters printed on the white pages unfold like art in front of the eyes, mesmerizing and captivating the reader. The mind becomes a camera through which imagination weaves pictures. The characters come alive and the reader is transported to where the story is set. Finally when the book has been read, it takes the form of a trustworthy friend; one you can fall back on at times of need to keep aside your worries and forget your pains! And this is exactly what yours truly is into; reading ‘Little Women’ (by L.M.Alcott) for the umpteenth time, to learn a thing or two from the March girls and lose herself into its pages, dreaming about silky flowing gowns, dances, delicious muffins, horse carriages et al!
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