"When I caught the mumps, I couldn't read; when I went back to school again, I could. The first page of The Hobbit was a thicket of symbols, to be decoded one at a time and joined hesitantly together...
I. N. In. A. In a. h, o, l, e. In a hole. I,n,t,h,e,g,r,o,u,n,d. In a hole in the ground. L-i-v-e-d-a-h-o-b-b-i-t. In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit...And then I never stopped again."

Author Francis Spufford takes you on a journey back through the stories and books that made him and may have also made you. From The Forest of fairy tales where the fear is being on your own, the books where you stepped through and landed into another world like Narnia, the towns like those in the Little House series and To Kill A Mockingbird that teaches you about the lives of others and societal expectations. You may find many favorites you share with Spufford from Pooh to Tolkien and authors like Bradbury, King, to Le Guin.

I recently read his first novel, Golden Hill, and then picked this book up. I enjoyed Spufford's insights and I found an author who feels like as Anne Shirley would say, "a kindred spirit." ( )

Good opening chapter - I could really relate. But I just couldn't get into the rest. It might just be that it isn't the right for me at this point, so I'll try again next year...it did have promise. ( )

A book about books and reading. How could I go wrong? I thought. But somehow I did, or maybe Spufford did. Because this is not really much of a memoir. And, to be fair, the author does say early on, "What follows is more about books than it is about me, but nonetheless it is my inward autobiography ..." An honest assessment, I must admit, much to my disappointment.

Because THE CHILD THAT BOOKS BUILT: A LIFE IN READING is a rather odd and uneven mix of the personal and the scholarly, with the emphasis on the latter. Indeed I nearly put the book aside after nearly sixty pages that seemed to deal more with Piaget, Bettelheim, Freud and Spock, and their theories and comments on early childhood development and language acquistition, than it did with kids' books. Even Kant and Wittgenstein entered the equation later on. And that can be some pretty heavy sledding, when what one really wants to know is What did this guy read as a kid?

But even when he begins to dwell on his own reading, Spufford's story remained largely foreign territory to me. For one thing, he is a sci-fi/fantasy afficianado. I am not. He tells us that the first real book he read all on his own was THE HOBBIT, when he was six, and quarantined with the mumps. A few years later he read more of Tolkien. Later he gets into C.S. Lewis and the Narnia books, T.H. White's THE SWORD IN THE STONE, and Ray Bradbury (SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES). With the exception of White, most of these books leave me cold. I have never been able to get into Tolkien, despite the recommendations by students back when I was teaching college English in the 70s. And Lewis? All I've read of him is THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, which I rather enjoyed many years ago. He also mentions Carroll's ALICE, E. Nesbit and Sendak, who were a bit more recognizable than other writers I did not know at all, many of them British.

When he talked of the LITTLE HOUSE books and a trip he made to DeSmet, South Dakota, I became briefly interested, especially when he told of a critic who insisted that the books were really a collaboration - Wilder's stories and memories, enhanced and edited by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, a professional writer. He also told the popularity of Ian Fleming's James Bond books when he was a pre-teen and the books were passed around at his boarding school. And I have read a few Fleming books, but I was already in the Army, stationed overseas, when that happened.

And that may be part of the disconnect. I am twenty years older than Spufford. My life experiences were vastly different. Which doesn't have to be a problem, but there is very little here about Spufford's life. His parents were academics, and his sister was very sickly. He grew up on the grounds of a college, in institutional housing on the edge of an overgrown forest. (One thinks of Milne's hundred-acre wood. And he does speak of Pooh and Piglet in here.)

I also found his comments on TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD very interesting, maybe because he found it so difficult to picture, the story and setting being so foreign to his own life. He also talks of his preadolescent interest in "dirty books," telling of his disappointment in the book version of EMMANUELLE, reminding me of my own disappointment at reading LOLITA at thirteen, and wondering what all the fuss was about.

In the final analysis, however, I have to say I found the book only mildly and sporadically interesting, and found myself skimming long-ish sections of it. I consider myself an ardent book lover, but I did not really love this one. As I said earlier, heavy on 'scholarly.' I would recommend it, however, for librarians and students of children's lit and child psychology.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

The Child That Books Built is an explanation for an addiction. Francis Spufford's addiction. Right up front Spufford admits to his insatiable need to read, starting when he was a young child. He would explain his relationships with books as such, "Reading catatonically wasn't something I chose to do...the stopping my ears with fiction was non-negotiable" (p 2). Once he gets his explanations out of the way he goes on to explain how all the reading he had done as a child shaped his world as an adult. Drawing on psychology and philosophy to make his points Spufford connects the world of Narnia to that of religious adoration; the Little House on the Prairie to that of family and community. ( )

I probably liked this a lot because so much of it was about books that I loved as a child. But also because, well, it's not just about books, or the author, but also about reading and what it does to you and why. Fascinating stuff, and I am looking forward to more of Spufford's books. (I have a list.) ( )