Book built from author's early love of reading

By NANCY PATE
ORLANDO SENTINEL
"The Child That Books Built" by Francis Spufford (Metropolitan, $23)
If you are a grown-up who once read under the covers by flashlight but now fall asleep in front of the television, Francis Spufford's memoir, "The Child That Books Built," will remind you of what you're missing.
A British journalist now in his early 30s, Spufford grew up in an earlier golden age of children's literature, devouring books by J.R.R. Tolkien, Jill Paton Walsh, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Peter Dickinson, Ursula Le Guin and C.S. Lewis. The Narnia chronicles were particular favorites, and like many others enthralled by the series, he checked out the back of wardrobes. Just maybe there would be a door ...
"More than I wanted books to do anything else, I wanted them to take me away," he recalls. Books were an escape from the real world where his younger sister was seriously ill.
Writing with insight and affection about the books he read, Spufford also discusses reading and its role in child development. Books are part of "the history of our self-understanding." We are what we read. Book lovers know that, but it's nice to have such an eloquent testament to the power of reading.