I was an avid reader of fiction when I was a child. Novels about challenging issues or strange fantasy worlds. In many ways reading was an escape to a safe place, but those books were also places where I could learn about how “people” worked. How they thought, felt & behaved. The diversity in those things.
I loved The Little Princess and The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, because they were about children who were different & how they coped. I loved The Chronicles of Narnia because, although quite dated now, the girls had real adventures alongside their brothers. There was a series of books about witches, good & bad, which I loved but can’t remember the titles or author.
I loved Ivan Southall’s books, where tweens & teens faced dangers, often without the support of adults. (Marsden’s Tomorrow when the War Began is reminiscent of Southall.)
And as an adult, I still like youth & YA fiction, probably for the same reason, because I’m still learning how humans work. I also like adult fiction, but the naivety of youth fiction appeals.
And TBO, I read much more non-fiction than fiction nowadays. Obviously there’s the Autism & ADHD stuff that is currently dominating my reading, but also social commentaries of all sorts, by feminists, sociologists, etc.
