friends in books

Do you remember the first time you found a friend in a book? A character you could completely identify with though you may not have had anything in common?

For me the first “book friend” I remember was Laura Ingalls in Little House in the Big Woods. Suburbia was a far cry from the woods of pioneer Wisconsin, but I understood Laura. I was sure that we would have been the best of friends. Later it was LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. I was jealous of Anne’s relationship with Diana. I knew I would be a much better friend for her than that perfect Diana. I certainly wasn’t an orphan, but I knew what it was like to be misunderstood like Anne and I also empathized with her struggles as a writer.

The reason I bring this up is that the idea of finding a friend in a book is a central idea to Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones. Set on a small island in the Pacific, caught up in a civil war, Matilda learns about language, literature and race as her only “textbook” at school becomes Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

“By the time Mr. Watts reached the end of chapter one I felt like I had been spoken to by this boy Pip. This boy who I couldn’t see to touch but knew by ear. I had found a new friend.

The surprising thing is where I’d found him–not up a tree or sulking in the shade, or splashing around in one of the hill streams, but in a book. No one had told us kids to look there for a friend.”

Matilda faces a difficult journey growing up as her village is blocked from trade and alternately occupied by soldiers from both sides of the conflict. School, taught by the one remaining white man on the island is completely at odds with her mother’s religious beliefs and Matilda’s loyalty is torn as she sees value in both perspectives.

If you think it might be of interest – check out the website and excerpts from the story in the section called Matilda’s Diary.