A review by nerfherder86
The Book That Made Me by Judith Ridge

3.0

An anthology of essays by Australian and New Zealand authors about the books they read (mostly as children or teens) that strongly influenced them to become writers, or that showed them characters like themselves, or just had a big impact on their lives. A few of the authors I recognized and have read their work, such as Marcus Zusak, Mal Peet, Shaun Tan, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Jaclyn Moriarty, and Kate Constable. The others were not familiar to me, and all of the essays make references to some Australian books and writers that I had to look up. But it was an interesting mix of essays. Each is accompanied by a childhood photo of the author, which was adorable! Shaun Tan's contribution is several cute cartoons of aliens and goofy characters all reading, answering the question "Why do you read?"--"I never know what I'll find!" or "I'm recharging my imagination," etc. And I liked Queenie Chan, the graphic novelist's segment, which illustrates her story about "cousin Munn" the doctor, who gave teen Queenie a manga about a real doctor. Up til then she hadn't realized you could do nonfiction in manga style. A couple of the essays are about books they discovered as adults, however, which to me wasn't as effective to include in a book aimed at kid and teen readers. But overall, a nice anthology.