Ray

Post World War 2 the world began to rapidly grow and change. An increased market for children's books emerged but not quite yet the marvelous children's authors that emerged with the times. Someone [bless their little pointed head[s]] decided that Victorian authors like Jules Verne [who wrote for adults] could be marketed as children's books. Abridged to be sure, but with just the right amount of adventure and excluding most of the "boring" scientific detail. There were many available authors Ballentyne, Dumas, and Stevenson to name but a few. Verne, my first SF, I couldn't get enough. This led me to Burroughs and the wealth of pulp SF in America and then onwards to Campbell's stable Asimov et al. Verne is a seminal author in my world of story.

There is of course the warmth, wonder, and excitement of the story but there's also the personal story of how this book entered my life and has stayed with me. Bought for me by my dear Grandmother in a small Victorian backstreet bookshop; in an industrial northern English town; from shelves of children's books located in the shop cellar that one entered down a narrow iron spiral staircase. A Magical book from a Magical place given to me by a Magical woman. Piper at the Gates of Dawn indeed!

The first 'real' book read to me by my father probably at about the age of 6 years. I was Jim in the apple barrel and to be truthful 65 years later I am still there. One of the first books I read for myself a few years later so with hindsight this book gains the award of being the Genesis of my passion for story.