Madeleine’s World: a biography of a three year old.
It’s a really unique book, really hard to explain. It’s a journey of parenthood recorded by a writer, but it’s also a careful observation of Madeleine’s construction of her self. She is a very verbal child, able to articulate a number of interior experiences that Fred couldn’t (I used to think this was a literary device till I had Una who could speak in sentences when she turned one), and he is particularly interested in the way she uses books to interpret and construct the world.

I first read it when Fred was a baby and reread it several times over the next few years, could read it again now actually. It’s about being human, both as child and a parent, about the complexities of discovering our full range of emotions in the tight embrace of early family life. It’s also about the poetics of early childhood, the shared territory of early experience and the role books play in that, and for this reason alone I highly, highly recommend it.

When I was looking for a link I found a few reviews bagging it as self-indulgent, ‘pedomania’ one reviewer calls it. Perhaps you have to be in the same space yourself, I’m not sure, but I think Madeleine’s World will bring me back to that space for the rest of my world. It’s probably my most precious “grown up” book.

I love Rachel Cusk and Anne Enright, though I haven’t read their “Mummy memoirs”. I suspect they would take me to a different and far more complex part of myself. Brian Hall takes me to the part of me that is simply fascinated by seeing a child ignite into being.

Thanks so much for sharing!!