First Response to The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford

In reading the first two of the five sections of this memoir, I found Spufford's narrative to be almost clinical, but at the same time engagingly descriptive. As he talks about growing up with a kid sister who suffers from cystinosis, the vivid mental pictures the auther creates really drew me in and got me to pay more attention. When he moves on the topic of the Puffin publishing company's monopoly on children's literature "and their astonishingly precise recommendation to 'girls of eleven and above, and sensitive boys'" (pg. 20), I loved how Spufford could move seamlessly between stories in his descriptions of their underlying elements.