The Lost Book
A story on why stories matter for life and learning
It is a quiet blue-sky day, and in the daydreaming that comes with such days, faded story snapshots flash through my mind. A girl. An attic. A frozen lake, watched from an attic window. A blizzard. Children sneak down to the lake to skate one night and one falls through the ice. But did this part really happen, or did I imagine it? The girl leaves the house, sad. But why did she have to leave?
When I was nine, I lost this book.
I recall walking through the door straight to the far end of the school library and the shelves lining the back brick wall. Book by book I trailed my fingers along the spines, reaching back in remembrance, for the book I wanted to read again. What was the title? Who was the author? Randomly pulling out books to study the cover, skim over the contents page, read the back blurb, or flick the pages for a hint of ink drawings.
A timber framed picture of an old, weathered grey barn surrounded by an overgrown field hung on the wall of the family dining room in my childhood home. The gable roof of the barn’s top level had a dormer window. This weathered barn captured my imagination with a sense of adventure and mystery and during family mealtimes I often pictured the girl, looking out that window across to a frozen pond where she skated one night with her friend.
The picture gallery of my imagination was poorly hung with faded and fragmented memories. The memory of the book is a mystery and I cannot tell what might be fact and what might be fiction. “Imagination is nothing if not creative”.
I never did find that book. So much happens in childhood that we simply do not understand and much of what we learned and experienced we cannot reproduce.
I don’t understand why that book was important. I don’t understand why it disappeared. I don’t understand why that girl had to leave that place she was happy in.
And here I feel the sting of another question: What happiness did I lose? What was it that I longed for as a child of nine? The memory is now reframed as the mystery gives way to a sense of loss, of longing and something unfinished. One thing remains from this search: Stories are a treasure, they matter.
And now I wonder: Has this muddied memory somehow formed the groundwork of after-knowledge? Was it this unnamed sense of loss and longing that led me to open the door to the rain so my children could play in mud puddles? That led me to read adventure stories which inspired them to build stick tee-pees and cubby holes in the garden? That led me to collect books revealing, as Charlotte Mason describes, “tales of imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they are never roughly pulled up by the impossible.”
When I was fourteen, I watched a movie with my family. In one scene people walk through the desert from all directions, converging in a small valley by a river. I felt part of the crowd, wondering what I would find once I walked over that hill.
Jesus walked through the people crowding the valley. In a moment he looks through the group, making eye contact before inviting them closer. To sit. To listen. And he begins to tell stories in that desert place to soul-hungry, searching people.
In my early parenting days, with young children tumbling about my feet, a single shelf contained our family library. Today we have a whole room of books. Our library is home to seven book shelves representing twenty-eight years of family life, learning and storytelling. Looking closer, the library itself tells a story of my own journey through time and the seasons of adulthood, marriage, motherhood, tutoring and homeschooling; when books were both companion and comfort.
Books are a treasure.
When I was thirty I discovered the stories of Middle-earth. Tolkien’s tales revealed deep truth woven into the fabric of the fiction and through the journeys of Bilbo and Frodo. Gandalf invited and challenged Bilbo and Frodo to go on different adventures, arming them both with his companionship and wisdom, and fellowship of others. Aragorn, ranger and unknown king, showed Frodo the way as guide, protector and healer, and was later revealed as the King of Gondor, “For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.And so the rightful king could ever be known.” I discovered small things matter in a big, loud world where it is easy to lose yourself.
When I was thirty-six, a book found me. My sixteen year old daughter read stories from the ancient world as part of her history studies. Together we read Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ where suddenly a scene jumped out of the pages and into a half-remembered movie. The desert scene that impacted me when I was fourteen suddenly found a place and a foundation within a larger story. I finally had words to put to that feeling I had when I watched that long ago movie. I finally understood where it fit, in a clash of cultures and beliefs, and the battle of growing up.
Ben Hur first meets Jesus as a slave of Rome when Jesus offers him water to drink. His curiosity is stirred by the stories of the man and when he meets Balthazar of Alexandria, a wise man who witnessed the birth of Jesus, he is puzzled. Ben Hur longs for Jesus to be a king, to defeat the Romans and free his people. But as he follows Jesus, from his baptism and through his ministry, he wonders and wrestles with people’s opposing ideas about Jesus. What did it mean for his people? What did it mean for him?
Balthazar speaks of a soul kingdom that Ben Hur just cannot understand. He tells the story of a kingdom on earth but not of earth with wider bounds than land or sea. A kingdom that exists as our hearts exist but cannot be seen unless we first know our own soul. At this time, Balthazar and Ben Hur view Jesus differently, “I see a divergence of our faith. You are going to meet a King of men, I a Saviour of souls”. It is not until the death of Jesus, Ben Hur realises he is indeed the son of God. From there his life shifted. As did mine.
I wander around my family library, pulling books from the shelf as they catch my memory. Some books are highlighted and annotated. Others have old gift cards from friends as bookmarks or coloured flags stuck in important-to-me places and folded up bits of paper scribbled with questions, notes and quotes. Some, like The Hobbit and Ben Hur, show signs of multiple readings over many years.
My granddaughter is two. I pull down a book to share with her. A story I once shared with her aunties and her mother. Her imagination is a germ of power at this stage but each week I see it grow. In this age of faith her imagination is largely nourished through exploring outside in nature and delightful stories.
This time, and the stories, are a treasure. I wonder what stories might find her and shape her life and faith through all seasons. Just as they have done for me, regardless of my faded and fragmented memories.
Amy George 2024
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