My student Zahra who is
writing her PhD on children's nonfiction will be happy to hear that I
read tons of information books when I was a child. I don't remember
ever making a difference.
For instance, I
loved a book called True and untrue
stories from the forest which, just as
the title promises, mixed sentient animals and straightforward nature
stories with human protagonists. I liked the former best: the young
curious bluetit, the brave little mouse. They were not
anthropomorphised apart from having thoughts and perceptions. I
remember my mother thought I was too old for the book, but I
persisted in re-reading it again and again. Another favourite was
Wild Animals I Have Known,
by the Canadian Ernst Thompson Seton, over which I cried many
desperate nights. They are all about animals hunted down by humans,
and it was the first book from which I learned about suffering. I
still think it is one of the most piercing books in the world.
Today's ecocritics should have it as their bible.
I also loved an
obscure book called The Chinese Secret.
I don't remember the author, and google only returns business sites
from China. I didn't own the book, but my best friend had it, and we
read it together at her summer house. Then I borrowed it from her
several times to re-read it. Why was it so fascinating? It was a very
matter-of-fact story about the Europeans trying to learn the craft of
Chinese porcelain.
Another unlikely
book I read many times was Fabre's Life
of Insects. Who needs adventure and
crime when you have the dramas of wasps and ants! Although I also
loved another Russian popular science book with a narrative. There is
a scientist who invents a liquid that can shrink animals and people.
Two children drink the liquid by mistake and are carried away by a
dragonfly so the professor has to shrink himself too, to search for
them. High-pace adventure, miniature perspective again, and tons of
valuable knowledge. All I know about biology is from this book and
from Fabre. A bit outdated perhaps, but more than I remember from
school.
I also liked books
in which children travelled to lands of numbers or musical
instruments – Russian equivalents of The
Phantom Tollbooth. I loved fiction
stories set in Ancient Egypt, written for children by the most
eminent Russian egyptologist. I loved her books so much that I wrote
her a letter, and she replied! I loved a fictionalised biography of
Cervantes. Why would a Russian writer write a biography of Cervantes
for children? I knew it was a biography of a real person, but it was
just like any adventure story. I am not sure how much of it was true.
Of all world's authors of all times, I know most about Cervantes.
But there was one
science book that always occupied the central place in my heart,
Camille Flammarion's Popular astronomy
from 1880. I was passionate about
astronomy (still am) and read everything I could get hold of. Of
course there were more recent and accurate books, but I didn't care.
I didn't know it was an old book. I did notice that Pluto was missing
and that Jupiter only had four moons, but it did not bother me.
Everything I ever needed to know about astronomy but was too afraid
to ask was in Flammarion. I wonder at what point in my repeated
upheavals the book got lost. I would have kept for sentimental
reasons.
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