![]() ![]() When the real thing fell into my hands, I remember feeling shock: Though clearly a children’s book, this was not childish at all-more real than a fable, yet also (and this was puzzling) more real than if it had been written realistically. I already knew the story, or so I imagined I’d been offhandedly and somewhat abashedly entertained whenever the animated Disney film appeared on TV. I think I was twelve or thirteen years old. Instead, The Jungle Book introduced me to the slow-burn style of readerly devotion. The funny thing about The Jungle Book was that I didn’t go head-over-heels crazy for it, never experienced the obsessive infatuation that flared and sputtered over so many other books during my apprenticeship as a reader. ![]() It helps to imagine your reading life as a staircase rather than a doorway-a winding staircase, with each tread a book, and each riser your incautious love for that book’s characters, or plot, which kept you writhing, or the writer’s way with language, which felt so especially right. ![]()
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