There are some books that were probably pitched at the Youth market, but are just such a good read for any age.
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"THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER" - A. A. Milne (UK 1928)
As mentioned a while back, after watching the excellent movie "Goodbye Christopher Robin", I realised I knew nothing about Milne, and I'd never read any of his stuff anyway. So, I ordered one in from the library, and as I think I said, it was awful Disney tosh. So, moaned to Smudge, Smudge to the rescue, loaned me four (all?) of the so-called Winnie The Pooh series from her personal library.
This is the one I read, the second in age as I understand it, the first and last being all poetry (a bit cute for modern adult taste, no matter how young at heart you may be), and the third very much the same as this one. So I thought one was enough to get a feel for the content. And while this is a modern edition, it's the original text, and has all the original illustrations by E H Shepard, which was what I was looking for.
The thing that instantly jumps out at you is the "voice" of an adult reading to a child. You can just hear him speaking, that fertile mind dancing about, entertaining his son Christopher Robin. Which is what you desperately need to believe happened. Because it's a fun book. Inventive and entertaining.
But the reality behind all of this is a bit of a mixed bag, and if you need to delve deeper into the literary mind and circumstances of Milne (and son) there's plenty online. All a bit disillusioning! If you'd like to get things into a real world context, maybe watch the movie first, then read the book. Or just read the book and skip the movie and to hell with reality.
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"THE BOY, THE MOLE, THE FOX, AND THE HORSE" (Charlie Mackesy - UK 2019)
Smudge gave me this charmer of a book Xmas before last, but with several other books in front of it, it got missed in the shuffle and I've only just discovered it. And what can I say - it's such a Smudge of a book! - simple but complex, sketchy but a work of art.
A boy comes across a mole, then a fox, then a horse, and they travel about sharing their small discoveries about life and wisdom, all done with some brilliant illustrations.
Charlie Mackesy (born in Northumberland, my favourite English county) was in his late 50s when he put this classic together and it deservedly became the longest standing Sunday Times hardback number one of all times in the UK. And the man also has some bronzes scattered about, well worth Googling up, along with his own commercial website and his Wiki data.
So, do yourself a big favour and track down a copy of this book and buy it as a present for yourself, AND for your library shelves, which are all the poorer for its absence.
"THE KINGDOM BY THE SEA" - Robert Westhall 1990
In 1991 we were doing the campervan gypsy thing in England, and one night in some West Country camper park, while dial twiddling the good old steam radio for something that sounded like entertainment, we fell over the BBC reading of this book, lucky enough to catch the first episode just as it was about to start. We were hooked. We chased those 7pm 15 minute shots all over the country, timing our campgrounds to make sure we were in, showered, fed, dishes washed and feet up before it came on. Totally pathetic but hey, that's us!
It's about a 12 yo Tyneside boy who gets bombed out in the blitz in 1942, losing his parents and sister. Traumatised and afraid he'll be put into a home he hits the road, quickly befriending a stray dog in the same predicament, and the two of them live rough with the sometimes help (or not) of strangers, some good, some bad, some a bit screwy, all of them fascinating.
My guess is that it was written mainly for kids, but it's one of those brilliant pieces of simple, clean, even sparse, writing that suits a reader of any age. Reading this some nights, I just totally lose track of time and reality - I was THERE.
And Robert Westhall (English, 1929-1993) is well worth Googling up as an example of dedicated authorship that attracted plenty of accolades.
"A BLACK FOX RUNNING" - Brian Carter (UK 1981, this one the 2018 reprint)This is one of those books that you aren't sure how you feel about until it's finished. But when it's done, you think - Geez, this is a good book!
It's the talking animals, who all have names and personalities, that throw you off, and part way in to it you see it as a book pitched at 13-15 year old girls. But the sheer quality of the writing makes you rejig your attitude and press on. Even then, a couple of times I wavered, NOT because it isn't a great book, because it IS, but because I'm not a 13-15 year old girl. And I once had a 13-15 year old book-worm of a grand-daughter (now a much older book-worm) who was so IN to these kinds of books that she just had to have Grandpa up to speed and lent me a new one each week and I guess I learnt to love good storytelling even when the characters are all four-legged and talk.
Anyway, this one is different. Yes it's about a dark fox called Wulfgar and his precariously wild life over four seasons on Dartmoor in about 1946, but it's also about every other habitant of the moors too, including the human animals. And every one of them - two-legged or four-legged or winged - has a real world personality. Some are flawed heroes, and some are thorough bastards, like the poacher and his lurcher dog, who both hate foxes, but especially hate Wulfgar, with a passion that becomes personal. (Unlike the privileged horsey twits who chase them down for the "sport" of it).
Okay, this all sounds a bit twee and parochial, but this book is SO far above anything of this genre that it's in a class of its own. And it does this by continually switching between the lives of all of the inhabitants, and the interactions between them, so that it feels like it's just one story of the men, women, foxes, badgers, dogs, otters, rabbits, and the moors themselves. And author Brian Carter lived all of his life in or near Dartmoor, and knows and loves every aspect of it so deeply that it'd make David Attenborough look like an amateur.
But it's not just the sense of the authenticity of the setting and its inhabitants, for any writer-storyteller worth their salt THIS is a book that turns a light on in your head. Because of the sheer quality of its prose. This guy never runs out of a way of saying something in a fresh way. His grasp on a descriptive phrase is just about depressing!!
So my friend, hunt down this book and read it. You'll be a better writer and storyteller for the experience.
"THE GHOST'S CHILD" - Sonya Hartnett (Aust 2007)At about 40k words, this book is sized somewhere between novel and novella, and while it's generally listed as being for the older teen reader, it's appeal is far more universal. Yes, the style is very much like it's someone's real life experience, but written as a fable, sometimes to the point an adult reader would think it just a touch too "airy-fairy". BUT, don't let that put you off.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and without giving away too much, it's a woman looking back on her life - love, loss, travel, discovery - done in a style that wouldn't work for a lot of books, but oddly enough fits this one well. And the prose is at times sheer poetry. This lady knows her way around a vocabulary.
So, it you're into clever writing, deep thoughts, the love of words and the mysteries of life, do yourself a favour and find a copy of this.