See the book that inspired 'Homegoing' author when she was a kid

Judged by Nigerian Chris Abani, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Kate Christensen, Rivka Galchen, and Kate Walbert, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize is awarded to the best debut novel published between January 1st and December 31st of the award year.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was one of the shortlisted books for this year, because this year's theme is Storytime, finalists were invited to share the books that inspired them as children.

Published on Lithub, read on to find out the book Yaa Gyasi first fell in love with:

"When I was a child I read all of the well-loved classics for little girls. I wore out my copy of The Secret Garden. I spent weeks declaring to anyone who would listen that I was Jo from Little Women.

I read and re-read all of the Anne of Green Gables books, especially Anne of the Island, which I felt to be the best one because Gilbert and Anne finally got together, proving, in my 8-year-old’s logic, that there was some kind of order and justice in the world.

But the book I loved the best, the one that worked a kind of magic on my budding writer’s brain, was Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by .

Unlike the other novels I’ve mentioned, Hitty hardly ever comes up any more. If you search for the book in stores you’ll be hard pressed to find a copy.

Though Field won the Newbery Medal in 1930 for her work, hers is not a household name. Still, how I loved Hitty! In the book, a doll named Mehitabel, Hitty for short, is hand-carved out of mountain-ash wood for a little girl named Phoebe.

We then follow Hitty as she is passed from owner to owner, country to country, for the first hundred years of her life. The book was so intrepid, so expansive and multilayered, introducing so many characters and voices and locations that I felt, even as a small child, that truly anything was possible through fiction.

I had always loved the intimacy of Pride and Prejudice but I wanted the adventure of Moby Dick, and though I didn’t yet fully grasp this, I was starting to understand that women were rarely ever allowed both. Hitty, Her First Hundred Years was both, everything, all at once.

I’d almost forgotten about Hitty years later, after my first novel, Homegoing, a book that spans two continents and three centuries was published, until I read a passage in ’s Negroland about Little Women’s profound effect on her as a child, and recalled the book that had had a similar effect on me. Without realizing it, I’d taken Hitty with me."

Go on Lithub to read the first book Kia Corthron, Emma Cline, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Krys Lee, Kaitlyn Greenidge and Garth Greenwell fell in love with as a child.

ALSO READ: You need to see Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Taiye Selasi's best reads of 2016