Twice-Told Children's Tales: The Influence of Childhood Reading on Writers for Adults [Hardcover]

It is only in childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives --Graham Greene
The luminous books of our childhood will remain the luminous books of our lives. --Joyce Carol Oates
Writers, as they often attest, are deeply influenced by their childhood reading. Salman Rushdie, for example, has said that The Wizard of Oz made a writer of me. Twice-Told Tales is a collection of essays on the way the works of adult writers have been influenced by their childhood reading. This fascinating volume includes theoretical essays on Salman Rushdie and the Oz books, Beauty and the Beast retold as Jane Eyre, the childhood reading of Jorge Luis Borges, and the remnants of nursery rhymes in Sylvia Plath's poetry. It is supplemented with a number of brief commentaries on children's books by major creative writers, including Maxine Hong Kingston and Maxine Kumin.Betty Greenway is Professor of English at Youngstown State University in Ohio. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in children's literature. She is author of A Stranger Shore: A Critical Introduction to the Work of Mollie Hunter.Introduction Points of intersection &; the-influence-of-childhood-reading The Influence of Childhood Reading, Betty Greenway; Part 1 To drift in the currents of my unconscious &; Chapter 1 A Child's-Eye Reading of Mark Twain, Madison Smartt Bell; Part 2 The place was full of books &; Chapter 2 Borges and Georgie, Kimberly A. Nance; Chapter 3 Lonely Impulse of Delight, Dana Gioia; Chapter 4 All the Stuff, Antonya Nelson; Chapter 5 Taking Flight, Ira Sadoff; Chapter 6 Bad Habits, Lee K. Abbott; Part 3 Wake me up in Wonderland and Whoville and Oz &; Chapter 7 A Writer on the Yellow Brick Road, Justyna Deszcz-Try Hubczak; Chapter 8 The Pudding, the Witch, and the Titan, Sabina Murray; Chapter 9 Fantastic Fellow-Travelers, X. J. Kennedy; Part 4 The essential eternal stories &; Chapter 10 Grains of Truth in the Wildest Fable, Christine Butterworth-Mcdermlç