As a child, I remember sitting with one of Richard Scary's big books and just looking and looking at the pictures for like hours. I still enjoy looking at the books, even when Rhiannon's not around! My favorite was What Do People Do all Day. I don't remember what happened to my copy, but when I bought Rhiannon her own, I noticed that there were pages "missing". Upon further research, I found out that the older one had like 20 more pages than the new abridged version. Feeling a little jipped, I went to look on ebay to see if I could find the unabridged version. It's like $150 for some of them! Boy, do I wish I had my original copy! Every once in a while I look at the older versions and go back and forth in my head if I should buy it, but I just can't bring myself to spend that much money. Maybe when I win the lottery (guess I need to start playing, hugh?).
Anyways, this got me to thinking, and that usually brings about a blog post! Here are some of my favorite books when I was a child:
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| The Fire Cat By Esther Averill |
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| The Marble Cake Cat By Marjorie Allen |
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| The Wednesday Witch By Ruth Chew |
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| Page from the original What Do People Do All Day book by Richard Scarry |
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| Grimm's Fairy Tales My favorite was The Tinderbox |
I'm sure there are many, many more that I will recall after I post this. And you would think that The Little House books would be on my childhood book list, but I only just first read them in 2005. Rhiannon isn't patient enough for more than short stories with lots of pictures right now, but I can't wait to read her Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and then take her up to Mansfield to actually see some of her items. We went up to the museum & her Missouri home a few years before Rhiannon was born and I though it was the neatest thing to actually see Pa's fiddle.
One of Paul's favorite childhood books:
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| Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel By Virginia Lee Burton |
It's great to be able to read to Rhiannon the same books our parents and grandparents shared with us.
What were some of your favorite childhood books? I'd love it if you'd share with us!
I always enjoyed finding my dad's old playboy magazines but that's just me :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though I liked "The Fire Cat" as well and Doctor Seuss of course.
My favorite to read to my son was "Just go to bed".
I was a Dr. Seuss fan too. Grimms Fairy Tales was another good one for me. I would spend hours reading when I was a kid. I read all of the Little House series a couple of times and the Little Women series was always laying around ready to be picked up whenever I got bored. My mom told me she named me after Jo in the Little Women series. I always thought that was pretty neat!
ReplyDeleteI have some of those in my school library, classics!
ReplyDeleteOh!!!! I remember the Marble Cake Cat and Wednesday Witch books (as I should since Mom probably bought them and we shared). I also remember The Berenstain Bears, Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein and Wally's old Peanut's comic books. I also remember Mom or Great-Aunt Harriet always taking you and I to go buy NEW books from the Walden Books store. That was always so fun to pick out a shiny new book. As I got older I remember borrowing your Garfield comic books and then we use to read the "Choose your own adventure" books. I can't remember what the name or author was of those books but I remember them being really fun to read.
ReplyDeleteJeez, I must be a LOT older than all of youse guys 'cause I've never even heard of any of those! :o
ReplyDeleteI liked Marguerite Henry books, Misty of Chincoteague and King of the Wind are the two that I really remember. I also liked the Hardy Boys mysteries that I borrowed from my older brother.
I like how most of your favorites involve cats!! :)
Hmmm. So this preoccupation with cats is from way back, I see. My favorite all-time book as a child (back in the stone ages, when books were chiseled on stone tablets...) was The Sweet Patootie Doll. We used to get this book out of the library every other week and make my poor, patient mother read it to us. I ended up finding a copy for her 70th birthday (and, yes, it was very, very expensive - probably because it is the last remaining copy in the world).
ReplyDeletePreppy, I don't really remember Dr. Seuss as a kid, but I now have "If I Ran The Circus" memorized.
ReplyDeleteSci, I remember Little Women although I don't have those books anymore. Guess that'll go on the "to find" list!
Nancy, I didn't realize how "old" those books were until I looked at the original printing date. I don't even know half of the "new classic" kids books out.
Christine, Yep, going to have to get Rhiannon those Ramona books, I almost forgot about them. Maybe Dad still has boxes of our old books stuffed someplace in the attic! Ha.
Candy, I LOVED Misty! And then when I got older, I found out that there was one or maybe more books after it, but never read them. It should be fun to read the one I remember and the new ones to Rhiannon.
Susan, You know, I didn't even notice the cat thing until you & Candy mentioned it! Even the cat in the Busy Town books was my favorite character and The Wednesday Witch book had a black cat named Cinders in it! Going to have to look up The Sweet Patootie Doll now.