I’m always a little trepidatious when I decide to re-read a book I loved as a kid. Will the magic still be there for adult me, or will it have disappeared with my childhood? Fortunately, most of them have held up for me: The Giver, Wizard of Oz, The Golden Compass, Harry Potter, On Fortune’s Wheel… Every once in a while, though, I re-read a childhood favorite and it just doesn’t hold up. Not only does adult me not love the book, sometimes I don’t even like it anymore.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
This is the strongest example I have of this phenomenon. How I wish I loved this book as an adult as much as I did when I was a kid. I re-read it as an assignment while an undergraduate, and it didn’t even feel like the book I remembered. The story in my memory was much less piecemeal (the book now feels like more of a short story collection than a novel) and much less didactic. Alcott’s narrative voice intruded so much it pretty much ruined the experience for me. As an adult, I felt like I was being taught lesson after lesson. None of that came through to me as a child, and I wonder just how oblivious I was at the age I first read it. It seems so overbearing to me now.
Forever by Judy Blume
I think almost all women who were teens after 1975 have fond memories of covertly reading this book. Perhaps it was hidden under your bed, or passed around at slumber party, or shared at the lunch table amid many giggles (in my case). A friend brought it to school and had dog-eared the interesting bits (one word: Ralph). The next natural step was to hunt down the book at the public library, which had it in the adult section at the time. (I looked it up in the library’s catalog today, expecting to see that it had been moved to YA, but both copies are still in adult.) Honestly, it’s not that racy, but it was certainly the raciest thing I had read so far. On re-read, I mostly just found the book a little dull. As an adult, I’m not into teen romances, and there wasn’t much to hold my interest here. Plus, since I had read plenty of adult romances by the time I re-read it, the interesting bits weren’t so interesting anymore.
These are my two most prominent examples. Other books I’ve re-read have been disappointing, but my opinion on them hasn’t been reversed quite so strongly. And in both Little Women‘s and Forever‘s defense, I can remember why child/teen Kimberly liked them so much, and I can understand why they are important books.
Do you have any childhood favorites that failed to live up to your memories of them upon re-read?