Thursday, October 30, 2014

Reflections -- Three Thursday Thoughts

 

I see blog posts on favorite books and think, how could I ever pick a favorite out of all the wonderful books I've read? To me, it would be like a mother picking a favorite child. Impossible!

I have read so many books; one or two a week since I learned to read would be a ballpark estimate. That would be maybe 5000 books. Each book is unique, as different as a fingerprint or a snowflake. I read different genres for different purposes and value them for different reasons. Some entertain, some inform, some provoke. I read them at different times of my life, when I am nearly a "different person".

So how can I pick a "favorite"?

I like to read other people's choices, so I thought I would give it a try. To make it remotely possible, I am making three age categories: childhood, middle years, and recent. And I am giving myself three picks in each category. Just because I can!

So . . .

Childhood Favorites

#1

I grew up in the country, went to a country school, and books were scarce. One had to pay for membership in the town library (a luxury we couldn't afford), and there was no central school library. Each classroom had a shelf with a few tatty old donations that could be borrowed. They had an dry, musty smell and were ancient.

The books I owned were called Little Golden Books and could be purchased at the dime store for 29 cents.

My favorite was The Little Red Hen, a Russian folk tale about a hen who finds some wheat and tries to get all the other animals to help her make it into a loaf of bread. No one will help -- until it comes to the eating of it and then everyone wants a slice, so to speak. I can close my eyes and still see the pictures. My sister had red hair and so was chosen one year to play the starring role, the hen herself, in a classroom play!

#2

I think I might have read The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner, from my grandma's bookcase, and it probably belonged to my dad and aunt. We visited there every Sunday evening. I would pick a book and sit on a prickly chair by the bookcase, devouring it. I learned to read very fast because I wasn't allowed to take a book home.

The story is about four orphaned children who make a home for themselves in an abandoned railroad car. I loved their resourcefulness in making useful things out of discards and spent many hours lost in stories of my own, imagining a similar life of my own creation. Behind the ballet studio where I took lessons there was an appliance junk yard of sorts that I could see from the window. In my mind I created endless useful things for my own boxcar home from the junk I could see. It's a wonder I wasn't tripping over my feet and the other students because my mind was so busy elsewhere!

#3

I can't tell you how many times I read Anne if Green Gables, first for myself and then over and over with my girls, who loved it as much as I do. We've watch the movie a bajillion times, and once drove many miles to see the musical play. Why? I loved the setting (turn of the century Prince Edward Island) and the lifestyle and values it represented. But mostly I loved Anne ("Anne with an e").

Anne was another orphan, mistakenly sent to live with an old man and his spinster sister, both set in their ways and expecting a boy orphan. Anne always meant well but nevertheless was a girl, a strong-willed girl, who constantly found herself in trouble because she lived her life so passionately.

*****

As I look at these book choices from the vantage point of today, I can see how profoundly they influenced me and the way I have lived my life, how they either shaped or reinforced values that are important to me today. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get on with it. Look around at what you've got and make good use of it. Live your passion. And as my dad and the Red Hen would say, "No work, no eat!"


Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what books you loved from your childhood and how they influenced your life.

(The photo is from a hallway at Leadenhall Market, London.)

 

20 comments:

  1. I like the photo of the books. The books you mentioned I haven't read but that is due to the country you are grown up I think, each country has its own fabulous writers for children.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My favorite has always been the story of Heidi. I don't know why, maybe because of her relationship with the grandfather and her independence. My older daughter bears her name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I loved Heidi, too, and actually it's tied with The Boxcar Children for me. So many great things about that book and I love it that you named your daughter Heidi!

      Delete
  3. Love your book choices! It made me smile to read the "Anne with an e" bit. My daughter tried apologizing with great flair as Anne did. It always made me laugh. Good memories. Good books.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your daughter is funny! Mine named the small pond in our backyard Lake of Shining Waters!

      Delete
  4. Surprisingly as much as I read I never read either the Boxcar Children or the Anne of Green Gables, the Little Red Hen was a favorite of mine. My 3 childhood favorites would have been Little Women, Heidi and the Wizard of Oz series.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I never could choose a favourite book. I was very fortunate living near a public library and had access to numerous books but I suppose the one I recall reading frequently was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

    ReplyDelete
  6. PS I meant to say the photos in that website were taken by my brother.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Cynthia , your favourite books are so interesting. My favourite bboks were The Red Liittle Hood and Ann of Green Gables. I have read it many times firstly myself and later with my daughter. But the best book is Animal Farm by Orwell. I am so surprised you didn't have a library in your school. Because your country is richer than mine. At my countries each school had a school library and public libraries are free.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Small rural schools 50+'years ago didn't have the money for libraries where I grew up. I went to an elementary school with 8 grades in an old building, the same one my mom went to for grades 1-8! Most of the classrooms had combined grades as there were not that many kids. The toilets were in the basement in the furnace room!

      Delete
  8. The "trilogy" by Mary O'Hara - "My Friend Flicka", "Thunderhead" and "Green Grass of Wyoming".
    My first three books given by my godparents at ages - 1,2 and 3. Still have them and hard to believe
    I sometimes re-read!!! They are dated 1944,45 and 46!!!
    "Black Beauty" and "Anne of Green Gables" were always in junior school libraries as were the three above,
    so I think most kids here in Australia have read them all.
    Unbelievable that in the USA you had to pay to belong to a library!!! Disgraceful attitude towards learning in the
    "Land of the Free" !!!! Obviously not FREE where libraries are concerned.
    Here all libraries and even towns the size of Wabasha have small libraries attached to the council chambers!

    High cloud cover but the clouds don't look the rain type, but at least the mugginess has gone.
    Bloody "Hughie" has forgotten Australia! If any reader sees the 'bugger' point him in the direction
    of Australia. Thanks in anticipation.
    Cheers
    Aussie Col

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Cynthia for the information.
      Still 50 years ago plus I am referring to and towns the size of Wabasha which had a council and everyone pays rates, a small local
      library was available for use. Even small country schools (primary) had little libraries - mostly donated books - and senior kids (age up to 12 !!)
      were taught to be librarians ( a very great privilege and/or honour) to record books taken out by a student. I know I was one and I took my "job"
      very seriously. Oh those were the days!
      Weather: So much for the mugginess going, it is back with a vengeance - 12.00 noon and no hope of any rain - clear blue skies!
      Cheers
      Aussie Col

      Delete
  9. I love the photo. It is a great shot of one of my favourite things :-)

    I too find it hard to pick favourite books. I've read a lot but not nearly as much as you have. I only started keeping proper track of my readings in the last few years and each year it seems I read more and more books.

    I do remember the story of the Little Red Hen. Such wonderful fables and stories from days gone by.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Those wonderful Golden Books. I was allowed to choose one a week from the wire rack at the little market where my Dad went for groceries. I loved The Little Engine That Could. Now I read the story to my 2 year old grandson who adores trains!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Barb

      Had a "peep' or if you prefer 'gander' at your blog - interesting indeed and Breckenridge, Co. to boot.
      Sure is a very beautiful area to live in - lucky you.
      Cheers
      Aussie Col

      Delete
  11. I too loved The Box Car Children. I used to read non stop. Then as my cataracts developed I got out of the habit. I've had cataract surgery, but still have not picked up many books in the last few years. I've been reading "Book Thief" since last March. I've got to finish it before we go back to Arizona, They will never let me live it down that It took me a whole year!!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I loved to read the Famous Five and the Secret Seven books, liked the adventures they got up to. The picture above is fantastic, love it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Time passes so quickly when one reads. I loved David Copperfield when I was younger...

    ReplyDelete
  14. I like your choices. I particularly have a stong liking to stories like "The red hen" with simple but stong realistic moral.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I adored Heidi and Black Beauty, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn...and later Donna Parker and Trixie Belden. We didn't have books in my home a Bible and a Veterinary manual were it for reading. I loved school for all the books...and missed books all summer long. When I was in going into 3rd Grade we lived in Iowa for the summer and they had a Library and I got a library card and I was in heaven!! Books and reading are so important!! :)

    ReplyDelete