Five books that take us back to our childhood

Books are memory and memories are books. Over time, I have read biographies of well-known musicians, world leaders, actors and celebrities and I find that their childhood always plays a big part of who they have become. How they relate to others, their relationships, who they marry and their outlook on life. It also determines […]

Books are memory and memories are books. Over time, I have read biographies of well-known musicians, world leaders, actors and celebrities and I find that their childhood always plays a big part of who they have become. How they relate to others, their relationships, who they marry and their outlook on life.

It also determines if they would be kind, empathetic, needy, sad, happy or violent. Our childhoods define us for the longest until we choose that we can get rid of a violent childhood or a sad childhood.

I was very lucky to have come out of a home where love was a given. If my parents disagreed and now as a parent, I know that they must have done, we never saw it. I only felt their love towards each other and the politeness and respect they accorded each other. But no matter how sad a childhood, there will always be flickers of joy, climbing a tree, going to deliver rice to the neighbours at festive times and collecting some money in a washed bowl for you to return to your Mother knowing you will always be gifted with the change in the bowl.

Remembring childhood dreams, seeing a doctor and wanting to be one, saner times, a more honest society, mangoes that tasted like heaven and the aroma of stews from the neighbour’s yard, which can ultimately melt in your mouth if they saw you peeping but which can get you whipped if your mum ever knew.

Those were the days when moonlight tales made you excited and your long new ill fitted dress made you feel special.

Coronavirus and its many social challenges has given me an opportunity to remember my childhood and so should you. The memories are sweet and excitable and as an avid book reader even then, I find that returning to my childhood books have given me a measure of happiness in the face of this grim Pandemic. Good for your mental health at this time. Chases all the anxiety away. Here are my childhood books.

Enjoy!

1. As a teenager, I read a lot of James Hadley Chase. Indeed, I was about eleven years old when I started reading his books and racked them up on my shelf. I loved how he told the stories all American styled and enjoyed how a crime was solved.

It was ingratiating when the criminal was caught. Today I still enjoy true crime stories in the many channels that one can get on Pay television. More than anything else, they look like fiction and it’s incredible that they are in fact true. I spend time understanding how complex the human mind is. More often than not, it’s not who you think did it that actually committed the crime.

2. Those who did not read Toma and Tani should raise their hands. Enough said.

3. I was so in love with Poetry that West African verse became my companion. I really enjoyed all the poems by John Pepper Clark, Soyinka and Gabriel Okaro.

4. Of course, we read Chinua Achebe, who did not and we also followed Wole Soyinka. We were intrigued by them all. My love of literature stood solid behind me throughout secondary school and these writers made it possible. Who can forget Amos Tutuola’s book, The Palm wine Drinkard? There were also female Nigerian writers, of course, the likes of Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta and in later years, Professor Zainab Alkali.

5. I read James Ngugi’s books before he became Ngugi wa thiongo and when I met him at the Port Harcourt literary festival, I felt I had met him before. It’s amazing. Weep not, Child was a book we all carried everywhere we went. It was one of our literary bibles in secondary school.