Babar is an elephant). My parents and I would have tremendous
arguments about whether Babar was pronounced Babar,
(the French style) or Babar (as in the Mughal King),
but despite the debate, I still loved the stories and
the drawings of Babar in his magnificent green suit
and golden crown.
When I was five, I was given a
wonderful gift Roald Dahl's, as Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory. I was too young to read the book myself, so
my mother would read it to me every night before bed
time. What child could resist the lure of an entire
factory devoted to making chocolate? With wonderful
images of a garden made of chocolate and candy, children
chewing gum and blowing up into giant blueberries, and
the great glass elevator that burst out of the top of
the factory at the end of the story, this is one of
the most vivid books I can ever remember reading.
Another gift came in the form of
a book called The Velveteen Rabbit, or how
toys become real, accompanied by actual velveteen rabbit
that you could hug as you read the story. This timeless
classic by Margery Williams was about a boy who receives
a rabbit and grows to love him, long after the rabbit
has become worn out and furless; it is then that the
rabbit becomes real. It was a good lesson in the importance
of loyalty to your oldest friends, and I remember the
story long after my own velveteen rabbit was given away,
shapeless and moth-eaten.
At around eight, I became interested
in comic books. You may think that comics are a frivolous
waste of time but I found endless hours of
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