Introducing xpostfactoid's first guest post! -- by son Jonah.
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The
first book I grew to love was A.A. Milne’s The
World of Pooh,
as read to me by my father. In his eyes, it was a pinnacle of English
literature, and he cursed the copyright laws that allowed Disney to turn it into
popular pablum. You don’t really know the violence of the Free Market, he’d say,
until it breaks something you love.*
Eventually, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit came to replace Pooh as our
long-car-ride staple. As for many boys it was one of the first “chapter books” I
made it through on my own, and I felt notably older upon finishing. The book pretty much defined adventure for me; I can remember looking out middle school windows at our suburban NJ hills (which, though full of buildings, manage to look tree-covered from certain
angles) and thinking: how sweet it would be to just start
walking, with nothing but a stick and a small
pack!
