Today’s category – I’m going to be upfront and honest – is one I don’t understand and I am confused by.
The category is
Favourite book to give as a gift.
And I do give books as gifts. Frequently.
I’ve given Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine by Gail Honeyman, Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, The Power by Naomi Alderman, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. To my department at work, I have given copies of Susan Hill’s Jacob’s Room is Full of Books and A Passion for Books, a collection of essays and stories, lists and poems about reading, compiled by Harold Rabinowitz.
But the giving of books is so personal! So very personal.
My favourite book to give is – simply – the one that fits the person I’m giving it to. It doesn’t matter what the book is; it just has to be right for the recipient.
The person I have given most books to, however, is my daughter, my precious little five-year old. My favourite books to have given her include the old classics: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The Tiger who Came to Tea, The Gruffalo and all things by Julia Donaldson – I personally prefer The Snail and the Whale! – and all things Lauren Child, particularly enjoying I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go To Bed, I Am Absolutely Too Small For School and What Planet are you From, Clarice Bean.
The favourite book, the one which really fired and continues to fire her imagination, however, is probably by a favoured author of my own: Neil Gaiman. Having read The Wolves in the Walls to her only a couple of times, she was joining in and finding her own animals in the walls in our house!
Lucy hears sneaking, creeping,
Goodreads
crumpling noises
coming from inside
the walls.
She is sure there are
wolves living in
the walls
of her house.
But, as everybody says, if the wolves come out of the walls, it’s all over!
The Book Lovers' Sanctuary 