In those innocent days I didn't worry about distinctions like fiction and nonfiction. I don't think I knew the difference. I did know that I was thrilled by both of those books. And I knew that both of them were true. I believe that
Wild Animals I Have Known was one of the earliest books to popularize natural history to a wide audience of young readers. It's been a long time since I last saw the book, and I have no idea how accurate it is or to what extent, if any, Seton anthropomorphized the wild animals he wrote about. In terms of its lasting influence on me, however, the book's scientific accuracy doesn't seem all that important. What is important is that I read
Wild Animals I Have Known with as much pleasure and satisfaction as I have any novel or story. And I've remembered the book ever since."
2 Another favorite was "The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon. I still have my own boyhood copy, a special school edition that I read when I was ten or eleven years old.
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