In The Beginning, There Was Childhood
Like all great stories it must start at the beginning. Jonathan was born on the 27th of October, in the year 1970, in the town of Bedford, England. Not long after - when Jonathan was six - he moved to a nice place name St. Albans, located near London and grew up there. According to the man himself, from the beginning he enjoyed "scribing stories and drawings", and he says that he enjoyed them equally. Between the ages of seven and nine Jonathan found himself stuck inside, almost constantly sick. During those times he occupied himself with read book after book. He says that "...books littered my bedroom floor like bones in a lion's cave." This "furious" reading of books helped him suppress the creeping frustration and boredom that comes with being stuck in a room all day.
This digestion of books gave him ideas of "rip-roaring adventures". He says that they usually contained stories of bands of children, thieves, ruins, and secret passageways and hidden door that were activated if you did such a thing as trip over a tree branch. He says that his classmates wrote limited stories, often one or two pages. Quite the contrary, Jonathan experimented with many different kinds of stories that were indefinitely long. Stroud says that most of his stories ended when the teacher ran out of paper, and only for that.
His story writing extended through his school years. For those years he experimented with many different forms and styles of writing, including his own illustrations. Through comics and game-books, past board games and the later poems a plays, he searched for his favorite style of writing. He was looking for the method that suited him. He began to get more and more interested in other peoples writing, and continued too. Then he traveled to New York University, to read some more.
This digestion of books gave him ideas of "rip-roaring adventures". He says that they usually contained stories of bands of children, thieves, ruins, and secret passageways and hidden door that were activated if you did such a thing as trip over a tree branch. He says that his classmates wrote limited stories, often one or two pages. Quite the contrary, Jonathan experimented with many different kinds of stories that were indefinitely long. Stroud says that most of his stories ended when the teacher ran out of paper, and only for that.
His story writing extended through his school years. For those years he experimented with many different forms and styles of writing, including his own illustrations. Through comics and game-books, past board games and the later poems a plays, he searched for his favorite style of writing. He was looking for the method that suited him. He began to get more and more interested in other peoples writing, and continued too. Then he traveled to New York University, to read some more.