*A Sunday Times, Irish Times, Financial Times, Independent, Daily Mail, TLS, Economist, Prospect, Evening Standard and New Statesman Book of the Year 2024*

Can you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?

The stories we read as children matter. The best ones are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past – collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream up different futures.

In a pioneering history of the children’s literary canon, The Haunted Wood reveals the magic of childhood reading, from the ancient tales of Aesop, through the Victorian and Edwardian golden age to new classics. Excavating the complex lives of our most beloved writers, Sam Leith offers a humane portrait of a genre and celebrates the power of books to inspire and console entire generations.

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'A MARVEL' PHILIP PULLMAN

'A DELIGHT' JULIA DONALDSON

'GLORIOUSLY ENTERTAINING' TOM HOLLAND