Books of My Childhood—Part 3/4 Later Fiction

The following are books of fiction that came to my attention during adolescence and teenage years.

The Runaway Robot

What I mainly remember from The Runaway Robot was the faint sense of injustice I felt on behalf of the robot. He was at least as intelligent as the kid he served, and was portrayed as having emotions, desires, and apprehensions, but remained an object. Property. Even as middle schooler, I had the sense this wasn't right; that this was slavery by another name; and that if we were ever empowered to create such beings, that they had the right to autonomy, inasmuch as we ourselves have it. It was an open door to other, more troubled musings on the nature of the animals around us that, while not as mentally capable as us, are still possessed of love, joy, fear, anger, varying degrees of empathy, and the capacity to suffer.

The Gift of Winter

This one's kind of a cheat, actually. It's one that's very special to me. It's the book version of a story that was animated by a Canadian company in early 1970s, Rankin-Leach, and I remember seeing it one winter day when I was in grade four... I want to say it had something to do with the solar eclipse that year; I think we were all off that day so we wouldn't risk being outdoors to blind ourselves by staring at it or something. Anyway, I remember that no one else in my class remembered seeing it. It was a very strange story. A bunch of people in some town, all of whom had names that broadstroked their personalities (Nicely, Goodly, Rotten, Malicious, Small, Tender, and Bazooey) are tired of winter and set off on a march through the wilderness to reach the Ministry of Winter, where Winter himself rules the season with the aid of various iceberg-like people, notably the Secretary of Cold. They make their pitch and get shown the door. The three kids are overheard by Winter as they theorize why he's so mean, which brings him to tears. The tears become snow, and that is the eponymous "gift". Thanks. Thanks a lot. :) I saw it again on Christmas morning, 1980, and this time I knew it was coming on so I open-air recorded it on my Radio Shack tape recorder. I still have that recording, with all its background noises, my 12-year-old comments and singing, and even some of the station breaks. Many many years later, possibly into my 30s, I actually found this delight on VHS. But I remember seeing the book in a library and I looked for it for many years on eBay and finally found it. There's something even more real about having it as a book. It's strange, I know; the thing itself is an animated half hour. But in book form, you can touch it. It's real. It could arguably persist for centuries.

Incidentally, that special featured the voices of several Second City alumni at the dawn of their careers. Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Valri Bromfield, and Gerry Salsberg are all featured voices in it.

The War for the Lot

This story really captivated me back when I was 13 or so. It tells the story of a lonely boy named Alec who discovers he can converse with the wild animals in a lot near the home he's staying at. The animals live in fear of being overrun by a horde of rats. They convince Alec to become their general, and together they plot out their battle strategy. I remember it being surprisingly frank and violent for a book ostensibly aimed at children. For me, the ending was very sad. Mission accomplished, Alec loses not only the ability to communicate with the animals, but the very knowledge and memory of what he's accomplished. His deeds, his friendships, his heartfelt struggles, triumphs, and losses all evaporate and he goes back to being this average kid with no memory of how extraordinary the events around him have been and his part in them. I suppose the one silver lining from this ending is that any one of us could suppose himself to have been another Alec, a hero who's forgotten the role he played, but the notion you could do all that and still lose yourself continues to sadden me. Older but wiser, I suppose.

Watership Down

Watership Down was a huge big deal for me when I was about 15. The CBS affiliate in Buffalo played the movie across two evenings and I was absolutely enthralled. I borrowed the book from the school library and took it with me on our trip to Florida that spring. Later I found out that my friend Dave had the picture book; stills from the movie that, with the text, told the story. I traded something to him for it, and I cherished that book for years and years. Later on he happened to mention that it had, back in the day, been a birthday present to him from his mother, a charming, hard-working woman whom I admired and who passed away in the years in between. I gave the book back to him. Somewhat later on I was able to find another copy of the picture book on eBay and I still have that copy today, as well as the novel's less-notable sequel.

 

If you're aware of the book or the movie, they tell the story of a warren of rabbits whose destruction is foretold by one of the, a clairvoyant runt named Fiver. He and his older brother, Hazel, convince about a dozen other rabbits to escape. Fiver turns out to have been correct, and their warren is blithely destroyed by humans for a building project. Tracking across country, they eventually come to a huge hill, the eponymous Watership Down, where they make their home. The problem is, they're all male, and have no mates. Nearby is a Sparta-like warren headed by General Woundwart, and with the help of a wounded seagull named Keehar that they befriend and who becomes their one-bird air force, they set out to free as many as will join them. Can brains defeat brawn? Spoiler alert: eventually, yes. :)

 

Maybe more than any other story I ever read or watched, Watership Down made me want to become a writer. I was truly inspired by it. I've seen the movie upwards of a hundred times, and quotes from it live in my mind and spring to life on my tongue from time to time to this very day.