‘A rumpled paperback showed me I was not alone’: Charlotte Mendelson, Michael Rosen and others on the books that marked their coming of age

From a children’s classic to a novel of forbidden love, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Kaliane Bradley, Donal Ryan and more recall their formative reading experiences

I really did not want to come of age. My primary school had a playing field with a lush, unmown border full of cow parsley, nettles and tall grasses. You could find newts and frogs and birds’ nests in there. Why would I want to be cast out of the Garden of Eden? Then, when the rest of my class was exiled to Big School, I was held back and got to do year 6 all over again. I could not believe my luck. At the same time I was filled with an overwhelming awareness that I was living on borrowed time. Time allows, said Dylan Thomas, so few and such morning songs.

Continue reading…