Question: What books have had the most influence on you?

I always think of four books when I hear this question. Out of all that I’ve read, these four connected somewhere inside my mind and planted the seeds for every story I’ve told or written since. The first three were books I stumbled across as a kid, and the fourth didn’t find me until many years later. Here they are in what I think is the order I experienced them.

I was an avid reader as a boy, as long as we were talking about comic books. Until the day one of my teachers handed me The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. My first reaction was a well concealed groan, but once I started reading I discovered that, except for that cave and Injun Joe, I was reading a story that might have happened right there in Beardstown. Somewhere around two in the morning, under the blanket with that book and my flashlight, I realized I was was hooked.

The second book that grabbed me is probably not on one of the usual lists. I saw a book in dad’s suitcase one day called “The Neighbors Are Scaring My Wolf!”, by Jack Douglas. You wouldn’t have found it on the kid’s shelf down at Hunter’s Cigar store, but that book grabbed me and would not let me go. In fact, I have a copy of it sitting on my shelf as I write this. This was my first experience with that type of humor, and I was hooked for life. Then dad found out that I had it. He came in the next day with a copy of “My Brother Was An Only Child!”, and “Never Trust A Naked Bus Driver!”, two more of Douglas’ books. Thanks dad!

This one wasn’t on my list of four I mentioned at the beginning, but dad’s suitcase reminds me of one other book I pulled from that treasure chest one day. It was “Hey B.C.!” by Johnny Hart. Sure, it was just a paperback comic book, but Hart had a way to use language to say things in some very neat ways. He helped me fall in love with words.

The third book I was planning on mentioning also came from that suitcase, and this one scared the beejeezes out of me. (I have never determined exactly what a beejeezes was, and since it was scared out of me I never took the time to find out). This book was “The Big Eye”, by Max Ehrlich. Whooboy, those were 181 pages that rambled around in my head day and night and gave me things to  worry about I had never ever thought of before. It was the power of story this young boy had not experienced before.

The fourth book didn’t come into my world for many more years, but it earned it’s place on my list after only reading the first chapter. “St. George and the Dragon” by Edward Hays may appear to have something in common with Twain, but you might be hard pressed to link it to Jack Douglas, Johnny Hart, and Max Ehrlich. But in my mind, this book took all of the pieces that made those other books so meaningful to me and brought them all together in a wonderful story about someone like me, trying to make sense of the world and not having much luck, until a rather unusual storyteller steps in. This one is on my shelf today too.

There are other books that have influenced me for sure. “On Writing” by Stephen King is a favorite. Any of the Calvin and Hobbes books sitting on my shelf. And anything at all ever written by James Thurber. But, when I get that question, my mind immediately goes to Twain, Douglas, Hart, Ehrlich, and Hays. If I could ever write something that would have that kind of influence on a reader, I would be a very happy man.