The Magic Finger
by Roald Dahl
Like pretty much every child in the UK, I was raised on Roald Dahl's stories. The BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda were often companions of mine throughout my childhood, and my poor Dad probably lost count of the amount of times he had to read Fantastic Mr. Fox with me. I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox.
In all honesty I could have talked about any one of those books today, but The Magic Finger is particularly special to me despite it being one of the few Dahl books I never actually owned my own copy of as a child. Not only is The Magic Finger one of Dahl's lesser talked about children's stories, it's also the first story I can remember reading straight through completely by myself. I don't know if it was the first book I read alone, but it's the first I remember and the main reason I remember it is because I was constantly borrowing it from my local library.
There was something about this story that I just loved as a child. I don't know whether it was the magic, the thought of this horrid family being forced to live in a nest or simply the fact that I loved that this little girl had the power to punish people with the power in her finger. As a little girl myself I loved that.
Now I do have my own copy, and it's tucked safely on my shelf. If I ever had children of my own, I know for a fact I'll be reading it to them.
I love a good classic, but I'd be a big, fat liar if I said I wasn't intimidated by some of them. Les Misérables is so big that just the thought of reading it makes me break out into a cold sweat, and Thomas Hardy sends me to sleep, but there are some fantastic stories out there that don't get read because some readers are wary of classics.
If you're one such reader, I don't blame you! If you're introduced to classics in the wrong way you can hate them forever - I, for example, cannot bring myself to enjoy The Great Gatsby because I had to study it in school - but I want to share my love of classics with you and show you another way of getting into them without diving into the deep end!
How? Simple! I'm currently working on five posts in which I have compiled a collection of modern day fiction alongside a collection of classics. Despite being written perhaps hundreds of years apart in some cases, these novels include much of the same themes, characters and/or settings; my hope is that if the modern read interests you, perhaps the classic will, too!
In each post I'll be talking about two classics and their contemporary recommendations. I've divided them all into themes: Romance; Social Commentary; Children's Fiction; Gothic and Science Fiction. These themes mainly apply to the classics rather than the contemporary pieces, but like I said there are still a lot of similarities between them. I've tried to be as diverse as possible with my picks, but the majority of my classics are pieces of Victorian Literature, purely because it's my favourite there are so many different strands of it.
So if this sounds like fun - I hope it does! - look out for the first post, where I'll be talking about Romance, next month! From there, I'll post a different one each month until the end of the year.
See you then!
J.
Last month I said that for the remaining 10 months of the year I wanted to talk about 10 books that have influenced me, whether I read them 10 days ago or 10 years ago. This idea was inspired by the Influential Books Tag that I stumbled across over on YouTube.
Like most children, especially British children, I was practically raised on Roald Dahl's stories. I love Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Witches and The BFG, but the first book to spring to mind whenever anyone mentions Dahl's name has always been The Magic Finger. This is a little odd considering I never actually owned my own copy of The Magic Finger until last year, when my best friend bought me this lovely hardback copy for Christmas.
The copy I remember from my childhood is the one pictured above, which week after week I would get from my local library. I loved going to the library when I was younger, and yet even though there were so many books for me to choose from 99% of the time I ended up taking out the ones I'd taken out the week before. My little pile from the library usually consisted of The Magic Finger and a HUGE dinosaur encyclopedia that my poor Mum ended up having to carry because it was far too big for me to hold.
What can I say? I had an obsession with dinosaurs when I was little, and I was convinced I was going to be an archaeologist when I grew up!
I first read The Magic Finger when I was around 6 years old, and there's more than one reason it's a book I've held close to my heart ever since. From what I can remember it was the first 'proper book' that I read from start to finish all by myself. If nothing else that reason alone earns this book its place on my list of influential books; I felt the sense of accomplishment that came with completing something entirely by myself, and the realisation that I could read a book without anyone's help opened up a whole realm of possibilities for me.
I always loved it when my parents read to me, but knowing that I could read something on my own filled me with more pleasure than I could ever put into words. I didn't have to rely on my parents for stories anymore, I could tell them to myself.
Looking back, this book introduced me to a theme that I've loved in stories ever since: people getting their just deserts. It doesn't always happen in stories, and it happens even less in real life, but I love it when characters get their comeuppance. This is something that tends to happen in children's fiction in particular, I suppose because we want children to know that, somehow, good behaviour - kindness or bravery or selflessness - will be rewarded in some way, shape or form, and anyone who is cruel to them will one day regret it.
I recently watched Disney's Saving Mr. Banks, and thinking about this book reminded me of a quote from that film: "That is what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again, and again, and again."
What I loved about The Magic Finger when I was younger was that order is restored, and punishment inflicted, at the hands of a little girl. It's only a little book, but it's a powerful message, and back then it filled me with a sense of my own importance. Not, funnily enough, in a self-important way, but in a way that made me realise that even though I was little, the way I treated others and the way they treated me mattered.
What books did you love most as a child?
