I posted this on Carmon’s site today as a comment, and figured I should put it on my own site as a full entry! 🙂
So here it is:
I remember from very early childhood “The Color Kittens†it really drew me in, as did also “The Poky Little Puppy”. I loved them both.
In later early years, I recall several old books we got from The Book Barn, in the Easton, PA area. My memories of my Dad going there often and bringing home books are fond.
I got to go to The Book Barn once. It was, as I remember, a large old barn, converted into a used book store. It had at least two floors, and large bookcases filling the space and “lots-o-books”. It was very musty smelling, quiet and echoing anyones sniffles and coughs. I can feel the air, smell the air, feel the wooden barn floor under my feet –in my mind. I equate it with good books.
Some books that I really loved were ones from there, old literature/reader books for elementary years, chocked full of colorful stories that have really shaped my love for living books. This was what I read for fun, the good stuff that other children had read in their classes in previous years. My school years didn’t have such nice stories involved in the classroom. In anycase I see pictures in my mind from those books, delicious memories. Some of the pictures were actual pictures in the books, but many are the ones I made in my mind as I read the stories so long ago. Sigh.
So those are the books that I have no names for, as they were just “books full of stories†with blah-covers and they all just look like things you can see on eBay often enough if you look, but I don’t know what kind, who published them, etc. the ones I LOVED were. [All these beloved books were left behind when we left PA for FL when I was 13 🙁 ]
I read many things in the Library too. At age 8 I voraciously read The Little House series, and re-read them again and again. I have warm images, cozy lovely images of the stories in my head. The TV show that started then tried to rip those images away from me, but didn’t succeed. Hurray! I still love those books and read them every so often.
I really have a nice fondness for Robert Louis Stevenson poems, having my Mom’s childhood edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses as my own now. It’s tattered on the binding but the pages are well worn but still good. The drawings inside are so classic from the 30’s. 🙂 When I hear a RLS poem I see my mother’s book in my mind. I grew up with that very edition, it’s the ONE actual book I’ve had since I can remember.
I also remember Rikki Tikki Tavi (sp?) being read aloud and loved it too. I haven’t read it myself though, yet.
I added another comment the evening of January 10:
Comment #18 on Carmon’s site.
Oh, I just remembered my Mother’s set of “Pollyanna†books. Big books, blue covers, all of them. I read them all. I don’t recall them exactly, but remember how much I disliked the change in authorship, how apparent it was to me. I recall it didn’t seem so apparent to some others at that time though. Well, in any case that was before I was 12.
I liked the stories but didn’t particularly like Pollyanna, at least I didn’t since I was no Pollyanna! I was a good brownie, as my sisters referred to me, but definitely not as good as Pollyanna, or as sweet. 🙂
We were also a Nancy Drew family, and I read all of those at home from my sisters collections quite early on. I also love “The Littles†and considered it much better than “The Borrowers”, especially with a title like that, “Borrowers? No, they stole!†as my child-self determined.
At 12 years of age I read all the Walter Farley “Black Stallion†books and loved them. So next was his book about Man O’War, a huge book. I finished it easily, and shocked myriads of school and family when they found out I really had read the whole thing. 🙂
“Misty of Chin…†was captivating also, a bit earlier for me than the Farley books. This up to my Farley time was my “horse period”, and I also have a Paint By Number set of pictures I did in these young years, still have them, close-up horse head portraits. 🙂