I don’t remember the first book I ever read, but the first one I recall having read to me was a favourite of my mother. Coincidentally, it’s a favourite of mine, though I think we’ll skip the philosophical discussion about indoctrination for another time. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, is a wonderful book, but not the one I want to talk about today.
Rather, I want to discuss the book that first made me love reading, near as I can remember. Of course, my parents will talk about how much I loved X or Y thing, but today’s subject is not one on that list I don’t think.
Many people might assume, based on my age, that Harry Potter is on my list of books that changed me. Sadly it is not, I first encountered the boy wizard through the movies and did not read through the whole series until I was nearly an adult. Scandalous, I know, but my parents didn’t like the series very much for reasons I won’t get into and pushed me towards other books.
Books that they thought I would like, and did not have what they thoughts made Harry Potter unsuitable for me. Books like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Books like the Ruins of Gorlan, by John Flanagan. Books like Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. Books like The Enemy, by Charlie Higson.
Each of the above books, and their respective series, are what turned me into the person I am today. I cannot trace who I was before each of them and compare that to who I was after, but I can trace my love of stories and storytelling to the innumerable times I’ve read and reread these books.
Incidentally, please consider this my earnest endorsement of all of these series if you have children of appropriate ages. The Enemy is, however, a horror series that did a lot to scare me as a kid, so take that into account. Cracking good story, but scary for a twelve year old.
The Hobbit, as well, I can throw into that list. And its more successful sequel The Lord of The Rings. My first introduction to these stories was lying in bed, my mother’s soft reading voice taking me by the hand and leading me through the wonderful land of Middle Earth. She even read to me from the other books I mentioned, and wow, I cannot properly describe the affect that has had on me.
Just in case you ever wondered why I write so many stories about storytellers, that’s why. I want to share my own fondest childhood memories, of my parents reading are a bedtime story, with my own readers if I can.
So now I think I’ll explain just how each of these series, and their first books in particular, shaped what kind of creative I am today. If you’ll indulge me?
Grandpa Tolkien (no relation) created something truly spectacular with the Hobbit. Even now, goodness knows how many years since I first heard it, the first line of the books never fails to give me a warm, comfortable glow just behind my heart. “In a hole, in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.”
Hearing that, even now as I write it, in my mother’s voice, filled me up to bursting with wonder. “What is a Hobbit,” I recall asking. “Just wait,” she said, “you’ll see.”
Bilbo Baggins was integral to my learning patience as a reader and later as a creator. He also taught me that, sometimes, departing from the regular and the everyday is what is truly needed by a person.
It is that Tookish spirit that spurred me into attending Badger College in England for my first year of University (look it up.) I did not think to myself, as some people might dramatize, “what would Bilbo do?” But rather I had already become so accustomed to the lesson of Mr. Baggins Underhill’s story that I dove straight in. No dwarves, wizard, or irritating neighbours needed to usher me out the door.
He touched my life in ways I am scarcely to properly articulate, though I’ve done my best. And one line of his, though this might come from the films, has always stuck with me, “I want to see mountains again, Gandalf. Mountains.” So it is with me, I want to see them, all of them. I want to “walk from east to east and fight the wild wereworms in the last desert!”
The Shire is my home, and at the end of all of my Teran wanderings I always want to return to my house and sleep in my own comfortable bed. Much like Mr. Baggins, no matter where my journey takes me, I want to go there, and come back again.
Rick Riordan created, while not the most original concept ever, a world that drew me in like a blackhole. I haven’t enjoyed any of his other books in that world as much as I did the core five, but still I always come back to see what’s new. Much like Percy at Camp Halfblood, I want to go back because I feel like I belong.
Percy’s world was like a magnet to me, and I literally cannot count how many times I’ve returned to this world. In much the same way as the Hobbit, it inspired me to seek out adventure and go somewhere new and exciting — even if those new and exciting places are dangerous.
Where the impact on me of Percy’s journey changes, however, is the importance of friendship. Bilbo is friends with the dwarves, sure, but their friendship is not the core of the narrative. Annabeth and Grover are as pivotal to the plot of the Lightning Thief as Percy himself and my love for them is equal to my love of the main character.
Riordan taught me the importance of finding and maintaining strong friendships throughout my life. Of going through the wringer for the people who matter the most to you, and of how wonderful life can be if only you have the right people to share it with.
Additionally, it taught me what a fictional crush can be like with Annabeth and how fickle romance can be at that young age. Showing me how amazing it would be to have a friend or a romantic partner like her. Being rather young when I read it, I was in the youthful trap of figuring out what exactly made girls different to me and how different they were.
Turns out, not very and The Lightning Thief was an incredibly important part of that realization for me. It showed me just how powerful Annabeth was and that revelation carried into my real life where I was just that much further ahead of my classmates, many of whom were still in the “girls drool” mentality of youth.
Being able to grasp that concept from such an early age, I think, helped me grow into the person I am today. Why would I ever think there was a fundamental difference in ability between the sexes (and later gender identities)? Nothing about Annabeth, who is extremely awesome and badass, was held back or defined by her being a ‘her.’
Sometimes these things crop up later in life, or not at all, and my exposure to Riordan’s world and characters taught me to be a better person from the beginning.
For the first time ever, that I remember, I wanted to create something like Percy Jackson. I created whole story lines (fan fiction though I never wrote it down) about this series and what I would change. How I wanted the stories to go, and how I wanted them to develop. This series is, in some ways, directly responsible for me wanting to be an author.
Much like Percy, I always want to return to Camp Halfblood and eagerly await the newest entry in his series that should release in the next few months.
The Ruins of Gorlan, by John Flanagan is a curious one for this list. I read it in middle school, and by then most of my development from the other books in this list was done. But it taught me something else, something incredibly important that I, obviously, did not know I was missing.
It taught me the power of hard work and that people can change. That I can change.
Will, the main protagonist of the Ranger’s Apprentice series, is a small, thin child with terrible self-confidence. The first two of those is not something I can relate to but his position as a bullied kid with terrible self-esteem is something I very much understand.
Due to his innate curiosity and determination, he is selected to become apprenticed to the stoic ranger Halt. And there he learns how to apply the skills and talents he already has and forge himself into a King’s Ranger. My dad picked this series for me because he thought I would like it and that it would teach me something valuable. And it did.
By reading this series, I watched a person learn through strict dedication, a new set of skills and flourish into something amazing. He goes from a whisp of a boy and morphs through practice, practice, practice, into a hero on page, right before my eyes.
My readers might not know this, but most things in my young life came relatively easily to me, so I tended to avoid things I wasn’t already good at. Will taught me to be different. He taught me that it is ok not to already be amazing at something, because if he could already do it, then there would be no point in learning, patience, and practice.
He becomes a hero not because he’s the son of a god or because a bizarre wizard in pointy hat told him to, but rather because he can. He puts in the work and goes through the entire learning process right in front of us to go from an awkward youth into a powerful and confident man. That is amazingly powerful, especially if you’re like I was and think effort is icky.
There is another character, however, that resonates even deeper with me. Horace is a naturally tall and powerfully built boy — something I can more easily relate to. But when we first meet him, he’s a bully. He lords himself over Will and frequently targets him as an outlet for his frustration and aggression.
When he joins knight school, he becomes the victim himself and is brutalized by some of the older cadets. That specific thing never happened to me, but we were similar enough in our reaction to that harsh treatment. But Horace changes, he goes through an impressive arc and grows into not only a hero, but a fundamentally good person who would go to Hell (or in this case Norway) an back for his friends.
Learning what it means to be a good person, and seeing how motivations are rarely what we think they are, allowed me to forgive my own bullies and compare my actions to Horace’s. I learned how to be kinder, more caring, and a better friend. I learned that all good things in life take effort, hard work, and dedication.
I also learned that there are people out there, even people in positions of authority, who are on my side. I learned that I had value as a person and that if I worked hard on improving myself, that value would not only increase, but other people will come around to like me. Even if I’d been harsh with them in the past.
My sport growing up was Canadian Rules Football and this series helped push me, through long hours of practice, into being the best in my league at what I did for years. If I worked hard, a virtue instilled at least as much by my coaches, then anything was possible and I could be anything.
John Flanagan and his characters taught me how to do that, taught me that it was possible, and taught me the value of being a good friend.
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer is the one piece of fiction that, more than any other, taught me how to be a good person. Like the titular protagonist, I am smarter than average and struggle in social situations. I’m not neurodivergent, at least I don’t score as such on any tests, but I related to Artemis.
Like me, he was more comfortable with adults than people his own age and was over-analytical in just about every situation. He based his identity on being the smartest person in the room and was kind of a jackass.
Once I got over idolizing Artemis for being who I wanted to be, I learned about his faults. I learned that, in the first book at least, he is a straight up villain without a strong moral compass. That’s not great, but he showed me that people can change and that in order to have a positive impact on the world, he first had to become a better person.
“Use that big brain of yours to make yourself and other people happy,” his mother said to him. That quote so closely reflects what people have said to me my entire life, that it’s stuck with me since I first read it. Artemis is a genius and I am not (I know, my parents had me tested) but huge elements of our personalities were the same when I read the first book.
We also grew together. I read Artemis Fowl when I was of an age with him, and with each new release, we grew older and more mature together. I wanted to join him on his adventures and save the world. I wanted to get to know L.E.P Recon Captain Holly Short because… well I didn’t know why at the time, but I do now.
I saw Artemis Fowl II become a better person and watched as life in general rewarded him for it. He left behind the majority of his misanthropic tendencies and his generalized distain for the rest of humanity and his life improved from there. I wanted that, I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to become a better person so I could live up to the standard he was setting.
Eoin Colfer created a character who resonated so well with me that, once I matured enough to see it, I desperately wanted to be like him. Not the him from the first book, but the him that he grew into. I wanted to be loved and cared for by my friends, I wanted to have a positive impact on the world, I wanted to follow Angeline Fowl’s invective to “Use that big brain of yours to make yourself and other people happy.”
He taught me all of that. And I would not be the man I am today without the influence of Artemis Fowl, criminal mastermind.
The Enemy by Charlie Higson had the least influence on who I am as a person, but the greatest influence of all of the above on what I wanted to do with my life. This book made me want to be a writer.
After reading it, I wanted to create something like it and share that with the world. Of course, I dreamed fortune to follow that release, but mostly I wanted to create. The bleak, grim world of these books was enticing. The horror of the setting and the concept (everyone in or past puberty turns into zombies) was intoxicating.
I thought I could create something like that, and I wanted to try. All of the other books I mentioned planted the seeds of wanting to be a writer, but this one finally helped it sprout. I don’t remember how many times I tried to write something like The Enemy, how many times I tried and tried again to evoke the same kind of horror I found there.
Even though I eventually moved away from pure horror into other things, it is still a critical part of my writing. The visceral, unpleasant type of horror that focuses more on the reaction to it than the event itself has stuck with me as I’ve grown older and as a writer.
Charlie Higson, taught me to dream of being a writer. Eoin Colfer taught me how to grow from a selfish youth into someone others can relate to and care about. John Flanagan taught me the value of hard work and the benefits of personal growth and development. Rick Riordan taught me to believe in myself and push forward no matter the obstacles, to gather people who love me by my side and never stop trying.
And grandpa Tolkien (no relation) showed me a Hobbit who could change the world. A small person who could have a huge impact. He showed me a world of wonder and magic, but promised the return home. He was the spark that lit my adventurous spirit. He pushed me out the door and taught me that, if I don’t keep my feet, there’s no telling where the road will sweep me off to.
The road goes on and on, down from the door of Bagend where it began, now far ahead the road had gone and I must follow, if I can.
Originally published at https://vocal.media.