......which, according to my A-Level English tutor (and www.todayinliterature.com as well, since I thought for once I ought to check my facts first) was the working title for TS Eliot's The Wasteland. Amongst such other delights as The Wife of Bath's Tale, Death of a Salesman, and The Taming of the Shrew, one of the texts we had to study was a collection of Eliot's poems. This has now paid off in terms of being able to quote the occasional line here or there when I feel the need to be a little, shall we say, unbearably pretentious; at the time, though, I can't honestly say I warmed to Eliot very much. To be fair, this may be due to my not understanding half of what he was, allegedly, writing about. Being a little cynical in these matters, I sometimes wonder whether the analysts and students aren't reading far too much into some of these works, crediting both them and their authors with rather more depth than is actually present. Personally, when it comes to poetry, I prefer the likes of Carroll and Lear, and although I can only get three lines into The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock before coming to a stuttering halt, I could easily reel off most of The Owl and the Pussycat and indeed all of Jabberwocky for you.

But I come here not to bury Eliot... nor indeed to praise him... in fact, not really to talk about him at all (sorry TS). But my title (entirely divorced of its source) does have some kind of relevance, in that I find myself on a daily basis called upon to voice not necessarily the police, but certainly an army of 40-strong Mr Men, assorted fairies, elves, dwarves, and animals of every kind (but mainly, it seems to me, rabbits, squirrels and mice with the occasional mole or badger).

When I found out that I was to become a father, there were various things that occurred to me and although not right at the top of the list, I do remember dreading the future prospect of Children's Parties (a fear that stayed with me right up until 2002 when it became a reality - and turned out to be even more terrifying than I had expected) but also looking forward to bedtime stories. My Mum used to read to me and my brother, although at this distance I can't particularly remember what - certainly a large & beautifully-illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland and Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, and I'm sure a great many other books besides. And now I find myself doing the same with my daughter (except for Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, of course).

Coming back to Children's Books after, what, more than twenty years is quite an experience. I absolutely adored-- sorry, I'm starting to sound like The Tom Baker Years now aren't I? Nevertheless, I absolutely adored Alice as a child. I can vividly recall my excitement at finally getting an edition that included both the stories, for my sixth birthday. It was the first time I had ever read Through the Looking-Glass and was thus I think my first ever taste (even pre-dating "The Empire Strikes Back") of sequelitis.

Fortuitously, the above reference to the Star Wars saga reminds me of the sage advice to "stay on target"... My point is that I loved the Alice books as a child, but reading them again more recently I have to admit that they aren't terribly coherent either in narrative or in style. The first is probably the worst culprit for this, and its origins as a tale made up bit by bit to amuse an actual audience of children are quite evident. Like the early episodes of THHGTTG it switches from one thing to another like some kind of distracted road movie, and I can now fully understand why nobody has ever managed to produce a really satisfactory big-screen version of it (or indeed of THHGTTG). But I can't find it in even my cynical old heart to downscale my fondness for either of the Alice books, because they are so firmly cemented into my past.

I can handily contrast this reaction with the Narnia books, which I never read as a child. My first taste of the stories was the BBC Sunday teatime adaptations in the late-80s. My wife and I were recently discussing these, and she still does not believe me when I tell her that most of the animals in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were simply animated drawings, cartoon-like and frankly lacking in believability against the live-action footage. And, dare I say it of the BBC, rather cheap and nasty. I can't honestly say those serials left me with a warm cosy glow for Narnia. And having now read all seven of the books to my daughter, I'm afraid the books haven't either. My favourite is, oddly perhaps, "The Magician's Nephew" because it is rather different to the others, in that it seems to be at least attempting to be much more serious and 'adult', but also somewhat more sci-fi than fantasy (flying horses and talking animals notwithstanding). There are a few nice bits here and there in the series - the 'edge of the world' in "Voyage of the Dawntreader" for example - but in general I found them rather ploddy and not really all that interesting. Even the prose style didn't excite me.

Before I receive letters of complaint (as if!) let me freely admit that in all probability Narnia and Alice are equally well-written books. But the latter has the inestimable advantage of being a children's book I first tasted AS A CHILD, and whatever that indefinable magic (to coin a phrase) may be, it has lingered sufficiently for me to acknowledge but then overlook, its shortcomings.

Conversely though, and I'm aware that somewhat appropriately this week's column is also more of a rambling narrative than a cohesive single plot, there are some children's books that I have enjoyed as an adult that I feel sure would have left me cold as a child. Charlotte's Web is a story about a pig and a spider, and I can remember a girl called Melanie Harper reading it in Primary School; even the cover seemed to me dull and unexciting, and I certainly had no inclination to read the book. But we got a copy of it last year for my daughter (how eerie - it has exactly the same cover that so put me off all those years ago) and we read it at the rate of a chapter each night. My littl'un didn't offer any particular opinion, although she was quiet which is a good sign, but personally I thought it was lovely. Of course it taxed my vocal, erm, talents (or lack thereof) to the very limit, and I couldn't honestly swear that the accents came out as recognisably American, but it is just a very sweet, very touching story. The fact that Charlotte dies rather took me by surprise, I have to say, although my daughter took that (and previously the rather more graphic death of Aslan in Narnia) firmly in her stride. Heartless child! (Maybe the death of Andrew Rat helped her, as they say, get perspective.)

Of course there are now a lot of books which have been popularly translated into TV or film, and in this video/DVD age it is very difficult to read books about Clifford the Big Red Dog, or Winnie the Pooh, because of course my daughter expects the correct voices. Not just any old voices, but the 'proper' ones, off the TV. Not the easiest task in some cases; much easier to 'make up' voices for books of which she hasn't seen a screen adaptation. To my generation all the Mr Men sounded like Arthur Lowe, but my daughter only knows them as books - which is why I can get away with such appalling liberties as my bad impersonations of Terry-Thomas (Mr Nosey), Dame Edith Evans (Little Miss Splendid), and rather inexplicably, Cartman from South Park (Mr Skinny). At the moment my daughter has two books from the library featuring a wee girl called Katie Morag, who lives on a remote Scots Island - I can only do two Scottish voices (and as to whether those are very authentic I hesitate to say) so all of the island's inhabitants end up sounding like either Doctor Cameron or Molly Weir, as the case may be.

There are lots of books I enjoyed as a child, even ignoring those whose titles began Doctor Who And The. A lot of them still sit on my bookshelf to this day, but until or unless my little girl wants to read them I am reluctant to get them out and re-read them. The Secret Seven and the Famous Five, or the Galactic Warlord series by Douglas Hill, or the superbly-titled Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet - they all hold such a very special place in my affection that it would be dangerous and foolish to try and recapture their wonder now I'm (allegedly) a grown-up. Like a hazy dream, or a half-forgotten holiday, I can remember only sketchy details about these stories, but just the titles and the knowledge that I once enjoyed them, is enough to conjure up a cosy feeling, one which in all probability would be rapidly diffused by actually sitting-down and reading them.

There's a lot more, a whole lot more, I could say about children's books. My second year form tutor at Primary School used to read Enid Blyton's Adventure series to us and his Kiki the Parrot had to be heard to be believed; Beatrix Potter books may be well-illustrated but are terribly dull; the film version of The Railway Children is far preferable to the book... But I'm not going to sit here and write any more - I'm off to read a good book instead!!!

Let's see now, Doctor Who and.....

27th January 2004