I read voraciously as a child. I was always losing myself in other worlds. Here are the four top stories, out of many, that helped shaped my childhood imagination:
The Hobbit
Read to me when I was eight. I heard the story before I read it for myself, and I already knew it off by heart. It thrilled, captivated and enchanted me. The world it led me into was like a dark mysterious forest full of mysteries ... I loved Bilbo - he was so funny! - and pitied Gollum. Even as a child, I sensed the huge horizons beyond this story ... the Great War of the Third Age beckoned, and the long-ago forests of Beleriand. All because Miss Nye read this tale to us every afternoon, and ended each story-telling session on a nail-biting cliffhanger. The world Tolkien opened up for me was ancient, yet strangely familiar. It also goes to show how deeply his work is rooted in the oral story-telling tradition ... all his work is wonderful read aloud, with a deep rhythm of its own.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Another Oxford don who could spin a magical tale ... seven of them, in fact. I absolutely loved Narnia. It is a sign of how much affection I have for CS Lewis's wonderful stories that I am feeling hyper-critical about the upcoming movie (I liked the trailer, but have reservations about the White Witch). As an adult reader, I can find Lewis problematic, stylistically (his 1950s English kids swear like Edwardians, his avuncular tone can grate and sometimes he allows his politics to intrude), but that doesn't detract from the fact that he was a marvellous storyteller. 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', 'The Silver Chair' and 'The Last Battle' are perhaps my favourites, but all the stories have wonderful moments.
The 'Little House' books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A huge influence on my imagination. Ingalls Wilder is not exactly a feminist writer, but Laura in girlhood was a great role model: independent, feisty, hard-working, determined. The books provide a fascinating social history of an American pioneering family - Ingalls Wilder seems to have total memory recall. Wonderful, inspiring books, leading me not into a fantasy world, but America's Wild West.
Anne of Green Gables
Probably the most likable heroine of that particular genre. Much less saccharine than Pollyanna or the fascinating but rather preachy 'Little Women'. Anne was the fictional heroine I identified with most: the lonely orphan with a vivid imagination. It's a gorgeously heart-warming story, beautifully written - Lucy Maud Montgomery makes Prince Edward Island sound like Paradise.
I loved Kevin Sullivan's decidedly non-purist TV adaptation of the first four Anne books, in the late 1980s, with Megan Follows as Anne. I thought she was a perfect Anne, but my mega-purist, Anne-loving aunt raved and ranted like Wildwood about the production.
As an adult reader, I am far more critical of the rest of the series. Poor Anne, she just gets boring once she's married and has six kids. Sheesh. And a somewhat reactionary attitude pervades the last of the books, about Anne's youngest daughter, 'Rilla of Ingleside'.
The first Anne book is far and away the best.