enchantment, freedom, happiness, innocence
In a happy childhood, such secret nests can be a place of enchantment and magic, a place to escape the grown up world for a while. I still like the idea of cosy places in nature or in a rambling old house; where you can take supplies of chocolate and biscuits, with...
authenticity, discovery, enchantment, freedom, happiness, humour, innocence, moments, nuannaarpoq, sharing
This post is also available as a podcast on Spotify, click here to listen. We were recently invited to spend a few days with friends at their place on the beach. Among other things, I enjoyed watching children and their families playing in the water and the sand....
authenticity, awards, beauty, enchantment, happiness, innocence, kindness, moments, resilience
Our fifth nominee for a Nuannaarpoq Award is: Maria Voiteshonok Parameters:Â 20th-21st centuries, Russian, real, human, female, living Nuannaarpoq qualities:Â authenticity, beauty, enchantment, innocence, kindness, resilience References: ‘The story of a...
authenticity, happiness, innocence, kindness, resilience
After years of exile, deprivation and harshness, some kindness is shown to two young girls cursed by having had politically tarnished parents, leading to a protracted period in Siberia. The elder sister, Vladya, had tuberculosis, picked up while living quite...
happiness, innocence, kindness
After spending most of her childhood exiled in Siberia, much of it as a half-starved orphan, Maria is finally rescued by a distant aunt who takes her in and gives her a loving home for the first time in her life. “Oh my little birdie …” my aunt would...
beauty, discovery, kindness, moments, sharing
This Russian writer remembers moments in her harsh Siberian childhood where someone showed passing kindness and in so doing, made her and her sister feel they were recognised as human beings. Coming as they did from a family of political exiles, in a system where the...
happiness, imagination, innocence, resilience
This excerpt from an interview with a Russian writer brought up in Siberia, due to the political exile of her parents, demonstrates the child’s deep need to play and the imagination which led her to create her own dolls, despite poverty, exclusion and general...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, innocence, moments, resilience
This moving quotation is from an interview with a Russian writer who grew up in Siberia, born of a family which was politically exiled during the Soviet era, meaning that both she and her sister began life living, quite literally, underground, and were later...
discovery, memory, sharing
The Hungarian poet Faludy gives an enticing description of his grandfather, seen through a boy’s eyes. I like how he pitches his speech appropriately for a child, consciously or not. Also the idea that his words sunk into the young mind, and were understood...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, innocence, memory, nuannaarpoq
A powerful recall of childhood memories regarding the names of plants, the homes of toads, the awakening of birds and the smell of both seasons and trees. A surprisingly gentle recollection in a book which has plenty of violence. I started learning the names of...
authenticity, discovery, resilience
James Rebanks had a childhood awakening when accompanying his grandfather on a tractor, making the connection between his family, their farm, and the gulls and the plough. It’s a fitting start to a heartfelt journey from that ‘ancient farming world’...
authenticity, discovery, enchantment, happiness, innocence, moments, nuannaarpoq, sharing
James Rebanks describes a touching element during a class visit to his farm, where one little boy finds solace in simply gathering some eggs or watching the dogs work with the sheep. One day a class came from a distant town, and we were told that one little boy was...
beauty, discovery, enchantment, happiness, memory, moments, nuannaarpoq, sharing
James Rebanks describes a nuannaarpoq moment with his daughter, watching a white owl hunt. And he wishes her all a loving parent could wish a child along with the hope that this magical moment will live on in her memory.    I hope Bea lives for a hundred more years. ...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, inspiration
A subtle portrayal of the enduring enchantment of sea shores, whether through the richness of their treasures or their simple liminality. I like the combination of a child and an adult response, though isn’t much of the charm due to the shore’s invitation...
freedom, happiness, sleep, time
One of the joys of leaving a job is the growing awareness that waking becomes a natural process, rather than an aural shock. This doesn’t necessarily mean waking late, just naturally, and I still get up as early as I ever did, about six in the winter and five...
happiness, moments, sharing
A lovely moment on a children’s walk – I like how they follow the instructions with such verve; meeting a boy selling ice-cream, they stop him and practically buy up his stock. Also can’t resist the inevitable pun that comes of combining...
happiness, humour
The boy Gorky was much impressed by a group of Tartars he met with his buddies, and in particular of their capacity to laugh. I liked his description of their untrammelled merriment, despite the roughness of their lives. Carry on laughing!  Their laughter was...
authenticity, inspiration
Hard not to love someone who is known, and even mocked, for his great love of trees and grass.  Gorky met many unusual characters in his childhood and thanks to his memoirs, they have not vanished without trace, but can be liked and admired by succeeding generations...
enchantment, imagination, sharing
Gorky’s grandmother probably ensured his psychological and possibly physical survival, somehow rescuing him with her luminous spirit and her fantastic story-store. There seems to have been no end to the stories she spun, though it isn’t clear whether she...
beauty
A magnificent description of those most ephemeral of physical traits, a person’s way of speaking and the expression of their eyes. Gorky’s grandmother was a wonderful character and I hereby nominate her for a Nuannaarpoq Award. (Soon I will line up a...
inspiration, kindness, resilience
Certainly the strongest and most loving influence on Gorky’s troubled childhood was his grandmother. Her capacity to maintain her belief in life and humanity despite repeated evidence of its worst aspects, is astonishing.  Here Gorky pays tribute to the power...
happiness, resilience
I’m with Gorky on this one, and spend plentiful moments watching the birds in the garden. Their cheeriness and resilience even on blastingly cold winter days never ceases to impress me.  Mainly, we have blackbirds, coal- and blue-tits, a feisty robin, and perky...
kindness, resilience
An impressively positive assertion coming from someone who both witnessed and directly suffered from the ‘seething layer of bestial refuse’ of which humans are capable. Gorky’s childhood memoir is a testimony to emotional and physical resilience in...
enchantment, happiness, resilience, sharing
There are many such luminous moments, often in the presence of his resilient, joyous grandmother, in the childhood memoirs of Gorky. These stand out all the more given the often staggering levels of cruelty to which he, and even she, were subjected. It was a world...
