My literary inspirations, and being inspired to write novels about second and prolonged childhoods

The type of literature I read:

I've been looking for literature in where the characters somehow "go back" to their childhood while retaining their adult mentalities. This Star Trek episode was the closest I could find to what I was looking for. It may not be in book form, but it is a form of literature nonetheless:

Star Trek: The Next Generation - "Rascals" (1 of 5)

(There you'll be able to find the subsequent parts on the "Related Videos" menu.)

I guess what inspired me to read (or watch) and write this form of literature came from 7th grade. It was the last grade level when we could do a host of fun activities at the end of the year. (8th grade onward only consisted of Finals at the end of their years.) My class went swimming, collected trash aside the Interstate, and played many games at the conclusion of the Spring semester. I missed all of that, and still hold a resentment over it to this day.

From missing this crucial last event, I feel like I have never "completed" my childhood. That is one reason why I decided to write about someone who goes back to childhood (even though in the examples that you've read of mine, the protagonist embarks on a new, different childhood.) As well as find literature of similar themes.

I've seen and become interested in some literature about delaying aging (Peter Pan, et al.) and have made some ideas of my own (that haven't quite yet taken off as far as "The Second Childhood" has.) I have two other novels planned that are of a similar theme -

"A Century at 10: The Saga of the Prolonged Youth" - a supernatural being visits a child in 1910, and gives him a spell to stop aging right where he is for the next 90 years, and age only one year for 10 years that pass thereafter. Therefore, you can guess how old he'll look in less than a month. And how he'll live his life with this condition.

"The Kindergarten Loop" (The title of the first novel of the series) - If you have seen Bill Murray's "Groundhog Day," you'll have a better idea. The kindergartner gets stuck in a similar time-loop, except that his loop repeats every school year (every August), not every day like Phil Connors'. After 80+ loops, he only moves on to the next year when he gets every single problem correct on all of his school assignments. He remembers the previous loops like Phil, so he knows what Mom will cook, what accidents to prevent, and so on and so forth.

Another type of literature I read:

Alternate history, which I will touch on in my next post.