Have you ever read a book that made you think, I would have loved this book when I was a kid! If you loved books as a kid, and/or love books as an adult, then boy do I have a book for you.

Maybe you’re like me, and you’ve read many a book from a different generation, and you’re amazed how relevant it is. I’ve had plenty of books like that. The Adrian Mole series, which is prominent among late Baby Boomers and early Generation Xers, was one such example. I discovered a copy of the second Adrian Mole book in my mother’s bookshelf one day, and was hooked. I didn’t get the references to Margaret Thatcher and Germaine Greer and the Falklands War, but I loved reading about the adventures of the boringly average 13 3/4 year old. The same happened with Enid Blyton. I loved reading about Bimbo and Topsy, and schoolgirls going on tame misadventures in 1940s English boarding schools. Let me know what books made up your childhood, but weren’t necessarily written for your generation.

With my December read, I came across the opposite problem, in an exciting way. A recent release that made me wish I’d read it when I was a kid. That book was Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James. Released in 2018, I discovered this gem while watching BookTuber Lucy Powrie’s 2018 annual wrap-up. I thought: This sounds like something I would have loved as a kid. And I thought no more. Until I was perusing a local independent bookstore late last decade, and I noticed it had a sequel. And so I was finally interested. I picked up the book, and read it at a pace my child self would have been embarrassed about: just under a week. When I was finished, it further reinforced that first thought: I would have loved this when I was a kid.

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