Photograph: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images
My earliest reading memory
Aged five or so, at primary school: a story about two siblings, Janet and John, who didn’t have much of a life beyond throwing a red ball. Soon after, Roger Hargreaves’s Mr Greedy – much more fun, and terrifying when the giant shows up. The cover retained my bite marks.
My favourite book growing up
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively, about a boy chosen by an alchemist’s spirit to be an apprentice. It’s beautifully written, is set in English rural world of my boyhood, and I found reassurance in how the story was resolved not by force or cunning, but by acceptance, time and what we’d now call emotional intelligence.
