The influential books tag (P.1)

Hello y'all,

We are both big readers, we love books and everything about them. But which books have had an influence on our lives or on the way we see things in life? That is what we' ll be answering in this tag,  the influential book tag. Since this post with massive we split it up into two parts. We'll start of with Merel' s part and Iris will upload hers later on.

Yessss, the Harry Potter series, you knew this was going to be here. I absolutly love these books, I started reading these when I was nine and as the weirdo I am, I started off with the chamber of secrets. (of which you can see the Dutch cover above). I remember having heard about the series so my teacher gave me this book to read and I fell in love. When she told me it was a series, I convinced my parents to get me the books and I finished them so quickly that we were in the bookshop every week to get the next book. I would say this book has influenced me, it made me realise I love fantasy and it introduced me to reading a serie instead of stand alones. Also it has taught me many things and it will forever have a place in my heart.

I am currently reading this (about 70% through) and I am so deep in. I am seriously so in love with this book. Everything about it is so good and so wonderfull. It has opened my eyes to my own country really, it is really nice to see how foreigners see the Netherlands and I love the fact that John Green used so much little facts about the Netherlands which happily surpised me, I always taught only Dutch people knew these things. I have been smiling my way through this book. Then I have met John Green's writing through this book which is about the best thing ever. The writing style is so so so good, I am amazed by this and it changed my view on writing. I have always had a love and passion for writing, especially writing style, and John Green's is just perfection in my eyes.

This Dutch book is one of the first book I can remember reading. My parents always read it to me before bedtime, well parts of it, since it's massive. I loved it so much I always wanted to hear it, I remember asking this random kid, he must have been 16 at the time, to read it to me, poor guy. When I finally read it myself I was still as in love with it as I'd always been. It changed my view on many things, since it taught me that animals can be friends and equals, it taught me that people who live somewhere illegally do actually need a place to stay, it taught me that no one should be homeless, it taught me that some people are mean to others without valid reasons, which you should never be, it also taught me that children can't choose their parents and that they might have very different views and opinions. 

This is not only one of the first books I read in English, which changed a lot of course, but it also taught me that people can change and that everyone deserves a second chance. And also not to judge people too quickly since you never know what happened to them in the past.

I read this book already sort of knowing the plot,  but that didn't ruin it at all. This book is written from a six or seven year old boy's point of view, it's very interesting to see how children saw the second world war, that they were brainwashed by their parents, like the sister was. And that some children just didn't understand what was wrong and wanted to help. I've always been interested in the war, but I'd never seen it from a child's point of view, which opened my eyes to whole new aspects of WWII. It also taught me that children are molded by their parents, that evil is created, not born.

This Dutch book made me realise how much I love period dramas, I love everything about the past, especially the V.O.C. period, which this book is all about. I also fell in love with Thea Beckham's writing here, which is wonderfull. It taught me that people should accept each other and leave their judgement behind. 

                                             

The big friendly giant was the first Ronald Dahl book I encountered with. I was eight I think and I had devoured all the books in my classroom and we were probably not even through half of the year. My teacher then decided I needed to read a big book so she gave me this. I loved it. It influenced the way I thought about beauty. That you shouldn't judge people by their appearances.