The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading

(Paperback)

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***A Financial Times, TLS,Economist and New Statesman Book ofthe Year 2024***


Can you remember the first time you fell in love with a book


The stories we read as children matter. The best ones are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past collective and individual, remembered and imagined and invite us to dream up different futures.


In a pioneering history of the childrens literary canon, The Haunted Wood reveals the magic of childhood reading, from the ancient tales of Aesop, through the Victorian and Edwardian golden age to new classics. Excavating the complex lives of our most beloved writers, Sam Leith offers a humane portrait of a genre and celebrates the power of books to inspire and console entire generations.


***


'A MARVEL' PHILIP PULLMAN


'A DELIGHT'JULIA DONALDSON


'GLORIOUSLY ENTERTAINING'TOM HOLLAND

Reviews

'I stayed up past bedtime three nights in a row to find out what happened next. The Haunted Woodcaptures the magic of childhood reading and casts a spell of its own.' Laura Freeman,The Times

'A delight. an illuminating journey into childrens books and their creators.'Julia Donaldson

One of the best surveys of childrens literature Ive read. It takes a particular sort of sensibility to look at childrens literature with all the informed knowledge of a lifetimes reading of proper books, and neither patronise (terribly good for a childrens book) nor solemnly over-praise. Sam Leith hits the right spot again and again. The Haunted Wood is a marvel, and I hope it becomes a standard text for anyone interested in literature of any sort. Philip Pullman

'Profoundly erudite and gloriously entertaining, this is the most purely enjoyable literary history I have ever read.' Tom Holland

'Thoughtful, witty and warmhearted.Thanks to his wonderful book, myreading list is now full of titles Iwant to revisit... Hours of delight await' Sarah Bakewell,Guardian

'Sam Leith has been encyclopaedic and forensic in this journey through children's books. It's a joy for anyone who cares or wonders why we have children's literature.'Michael Rosen

'The books descriptions and analysis are full of context, humour and enthusiasm, as Leith celebrates the magic of endearing stories...The Haunted Wood is a feast of a book and one of 2024s must-haves.' Independent, Book of the Month,

'Leiths book is a box of delights, glowing with nostalgia and insight. Ill be dipping into it forever. But its also unexpectedly gripping. It has all the elements of a good story... The Haunted Woodbrilliantly celebrates what we have gained from our unrivalled storytelling tradition. If, like me, you find that it glows with nostalgia and remembered joys, then be grateful.' Frank Cottrell-Boyce,New Statesman

Magisterial and wonderfully entertaining The vast arc ofThe Haunted Woodteems with literary life. Leith combines a delightfully engaging prose style with erudition and empathy. But even more importantly, the book vividly and infectiously conveys a rapturous excitement for stories that are the foundation stones of our engagement with the world both real and imagined. Lucy Lethbridge,Prospect

'A wonderful book that rediscovers the magic of childhood reading and explores the complexity of some of our best loved authors.' Nina Stibbe

'How children imagine the world and how the world imagines children are questions of perennial interest. The process by which "children's literature" came to be a distinct phenomenon is central to understanding the issues; and here is an exuberant, very wide-ranging, irrepressibly funny, consistently insightful survey of that story, as much a delight to read as the best of its subject matter.' Rowan Williams, formerArchbishop of Canterbury

'Scholarly but wholly accessible and written with such love, The Haunted Wood is an utter joy.'Lucy Mangan

'Sam Leith is the best kind of guide to this world in which we once wandered.He is fair-minded but terrifically opinionated; good on secondary sources without getting bogged down; excellent at analysing the technical merits of a story but not too grown-up to forget how he once listened to them... There are so many old friends to meet here, so many authors you long for other people to read, and now perhaps they shall.' Melanie McDonagh,Evening Standard

'A gorgeous, loving and, most of all, learned guide to the stories that make us who we are.' Hadley Freeman

'Reading The Haunted Wood affords you a birds-eye view of history, and what you see from such a vantage point is something like Willy Wonkas chocolate river, coursing from Aesop to Rowling, crammed to the banks with magical wardrobes, Gruffalos, pirate hooks, cats in hats and all the rest... We can only be grateful that Leith has taken such time and care to compile a thorough history. The Haunted Wood is a Gringotts vault of everything you could possibly want kept safe about childrens literature.' Charlotte Stroud,Financial Times

'Leith manages all this in a supremely engaging style ("Nuts to the Mr Men"), dotting the survey with lively vignettes... Leiths analysis ofGoodnight Moon, a multilayered picture book by Margaret Wise Brown, is a masterclass of imaginative criticism, both hilarious and erudite... Leith has synthesised a vast amount of material and produced a marvellously charming and enjoyable history for the general reader, as well as a spirited polemic on the importance of childrens literature.' Literary Review

'One of The Haunted Woods great strengths is Leiths awareness of just how important childrens literature is, that the moral and political lessons it inculcates, or confirms or in some cases dispels are all the more vital for being preached in childhood...a terrific book, full of high-grade lit-crit and undimmed personal enthusiasm I loved Leiths story of being summoned upstairs by a childs scream, only to find his eight-year-old daughter reading that bit in Charlottes Web.' D.J. Taylor,Spectator (World)

'Seriously delightful, and delightfully serious... all of us who love to read started here, and Sam Leith does a wonderful job of reminding us how and why it happened.' Lee Child

'From Wordsworth to Wonderland, and the Hundred Acre Wood to Hogwarts, Sam Leiths history of childrens literature is as surprising and playful as the stories themselves. Written in punchy, energetic prose, this isnt only a set of love letters to the authors who have shaped generations of readers. Its a reminder that their books continue to be little time machines that can transport even the most jaded of adults back to the imaginative world of childhood.' Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author ofThe Story of Alice

'A history as beguiling, peculiar and immersive as the field it describes and the alluring, creepy woods into which it leads us, never to return' Lemony Snicket

'Leith's monumental and invigorating history of this especially pungent branch of literature... Sam Leith provides a social context for all the audacious innovations which enriched, expanded and gingered up the genre.' Patricia Craig,Irish Times

'This book is a delight... the great joy of this book is rather more simple. It comes with walking, arm-in-arm with a fellow pilgrim, back between the fur coats, back down the rabbit hole, back through the very walls, that became the world all around, and into the Hundred Acre Wood, where all your old friends have been waiting for youall this time... I have devoured my review copy with an almost unseemly relish.' Simon Evans,The Critic

'Childrens books tell us as much, if not more, about adult preoccupations, desires and neuroses as about children themselves.Atribute to these first experiences of readerly joy...to read it through is to emerge quite in awe of Leith's erudition and conviviality, and to see the world of children and their booksnewly enriched.' Ben Phillips,Tablet

A huge and highly entertaining work of scholarship,which charts the history of childrens literature from the oral traditions of the ancient world to the turn of the millennium the scope of reference is vast.. But what makes the information so readable is the way Leith constantly links the work previous generations to our own much of the pleasure lies in Leiths ability to flit between scholarship and gossip Lets hope that, in 20 years, he returns toThe Haunted Woodto write a final chapter meanwhilethis book is one that no one interested in the world of childrens fiction should be without. Oldie

'Excellent... This is a weighty volume but Leith's writing is as light as a souffle. The essays are deft and perceptive, pinpointing trends and themes and connections... [I hope] for a future expanded edition. For, although this utterly delightful book is 550 pages long, every lover of children's books will wish it were longer.' Neil Armstrong,The Critic

'The Haunted Woodis a fantastic book, one that I will treasure and reread forever, and a review of this length only touches the edges of its dragons hoard of gold.It gives a sense of the immense value and importance of childrens books in creating shared understanding and collective memory.' New Zealand Herald

Author Bio

Sam Leithis Literary Editor of theSpectator. He has also written extensively for theGuardian, TLS,Financial Times,TelegraphandDaily Mail, and was a judge for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. His previous books includeYou Talkin' To Me: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Trump and Beyond, andWrite To The Point: How to be Clear, Correct, and Persuasive on the Page.