Books—A Love Story

Andrea here. Books have been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mother was an avid reader and lover of words and pictures, so I know I had books read aloud to me from a very early age (though that I don’t came to remember.) By age five I had written several books of my own, lovingly preserved by my Mom. “Horeses” became a family joke for many years. (Yes, I’m still a bad speller!)

The recent controversies in the U.S. over banning books in public libraries got me to thinking about how much reading was a part of my childhood, and it shaped a lifelong love of books. Local libraries, both in my twon and in my school, played a big part in kindling that sense of unfettered wonder. In them, I could explore so many worlds—from the charming English country gardens of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit to Captain Nemo and his Nautilus in TwentyThousand Leagues Under the Sea.
 
Tales of adventure resonated with me. One of my all-time favorite children’s books is The Fabulous Flight, by Robert Lawson, in which Peter Pepperall grew small as a mouse due to a scientific experiment, while his intellect expanded . . . realizing that an evil scientist was threatening the world with a secret weapon, he and his pal, Gus the seagull fly off to Europe to save mankind . . .and enjoy a little sightseeing in London. I can’t explain why it appealed so deeply to me, but this “buddy” story of two delightfully mismatched characters still makes me smile to this day.
 
The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss opened by eyes—and ears—to clever word play. I loved how he had fun with language, and my brothers and I had hours of silliness reciting parts of the book and making up nonsense rhymes of our own.
 
I learned about history from books like Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle and the orange-covered series bios for kids of figures in American History, like The Swamp Fox.



In a nutshell, I found books absolutely magical. The power of storytelling—that alchemy of words on paper which take you to wondrous places and introduce you to wondrous friends—was transformational.
 
Our local library was at the end of the main street in the small town where I grew up, and my mother knew she could leave me in the children’s reading room while she went shopping and I’d never wander away from my chair. Among the many other treasures I discovered there were The Wind in the Willows and Charlotte’s Web; and the swashbuckling deeds of King Arthur and Robin Hood. What they all had in common was how they sparked my imagination and encouraged a sense of curiosity, wonder and adventure. I was one of those girls who wasn’t very interested in girly things, and my storybook friends, be they Bear, Badger, Mole, knights or just other children, helped me dare to think outside the box.
 
And when I look back from the present day, I realize that those books of quests, of courage in the face of fear, the power of friendship, and the power of love are the things that have shaped who I am as a writer. I fervently hope that nobody—child or adult—ever has that precious freedom to let one’s imagination soar and explore whatever world one wishes to visit curtailed by censors.
 
What about you? Have you always been a reader? What are some of your favorite books from childhood?

Comments

[Nancy Mayer]

I was around eleven when I first went to a public library but since then have been a devoted fan of them. One of the first places I took my children after they were born was to a library. I once helped set up a library and have worked in libraries for some time though not as a trained librarian. I never censored my children's reading, though I did let them know my opinion of it.Istill remember reading:The Secret Garden, Sarah Crewe, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins,Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys. As well as Grace Livingston Hill, Earle Stanley Gardner. I was reading all of these before I was thirteen.

[Beverly Abney]

Libraries have always been important to me, so it is no surprise that I ended up working in one or two for a good part of my life. Electronics can never take the place of printed books for me, even thought they are very handy for research purposes, and now that I am such a "stay-at-home' for information. I still love a cosy chair and a book in my hands, though.

[Misti]

This is so nice. Yes, I've always been a reader and my mom took us to the library regularly. I spent hours there as a teenager as well. I'm sure I wore out some of those library books I used to check out over and over. Now days I "browse the stacks" online and just go pick up the books at the counter. As a kid I loved a series of books: Childhood of Famous Americans. Juliette Low and Betsy Ross were 2 of my favorites but I read every single one my library had. I was also a big fan of Beverly Cleary and Lois Lowry's Anastasia Krupnik series.

[Kareni]

What a lovely post, Andrea.

I am another lifelong lover of books and libraries. We moved often throughout my childhood, but I can remember visiting the library regularly in many locations. Some childhood favorites were Enid Blyton's Five books, the Cherry Ames series, and My Friend Flicka. Like Nancy Mayer above, I also read eclectically . By thirteen, I was reading the Godfather, Agatha Christie, and the back of cereal boxes if there was nothing else to be found.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Lovely, Andrea! My biggest problem with the public library was that they wouldn't let me take out as many books as I wanted. *G*

[Lynn Pollard]

I have the USA to thank for a lot of my early reading experience. As a child born in WWII books were hard to come by in the UK (paper shortage), but my father was stationed in South Africa when I was eight and the world of American publishing was opened to me. I fell in love with Rose Campbell in Eight Cousins and never looked back.
On the ship out I read a book about a magic land I wanted to read again, but could not remember the title or author. Seven or eight years later I recognised the illustrator, Pauline Baynes, on a book spine in a book shop in Glasgow. The book I had read all those years before was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis.From the timings it must have been a first edition. No wonder I never forgot it!

[Pamela Ruth Meyer]

Thanks for this reflection and opener of insight, Andrea. Books are magic. Sometimes, magic needs protecting.

[Karin]

We were raised on Grimm's fairy tales. I enjoyed Pippi Longstocking, and Albert Payson Terhune's books about dogs,("Lad, A Dog" I think was the first of the series), and books by Marguerite Henry and Lois Lenski. Yes, I've always been a reader. We had a Childcraft encyclopedia set that also had lots of stories and poems.
As an aside, I didn't know Howard Pyle authored books, I just knew him as an illustrator. I saw a great exhibit of his work, together with his pupil, N.C. Wyeth, at the Brandywine River Museum.

[Pat Dupuy]

I've always been a bookworm. I would swipe my big brother's Hardy Boys books to read. I went to both the city and the county libraries. The county library had Nancy Drew et all. The city didn't. I love Dr Seuss, Lois Lenski books (especially Texas Tomboy), Mushroom Planet books, all sorts of adventure books.

[Andrea Penrose]

Libraries are SO important in our lives, so so many reasons! Glad you have had a love affair with them, too.

Like you, I was reading voraciously and over a wide range of authors. My mother never censored my reading, for which I am profoundly grateful.

[Andrea Penrose]

Beverly, I couldn't agree with you more about a physical book and a comfy chair. My kindle is great for traveling, or reading on the excercise bike. But I much prefer the feeling paper in my hands.

[Andrea Penrose]

Oh, I hear you on checking out a book you loved multiple times. Been there-done that, too! Favorite books really do become best friends.

[Andrea Penrose]

Ha, ha on the cereal boxes! And why does it not surprise me that you were an eclectic reader,, even as a kid. Your lists for our What We Are Reading posts are always breathtaking! (in a very good way!)

One of the beauties of librariesis that no matter where you are, they are a familiar and welcoming place.

[Andrea Penrose]

Ha, ha! SO true

[Andrea Penrose]

Magic definitely needs protecting, Pamela. It's more fragile than we think. We all need to stay on guard and protect it for future generations, who like us, need to learn the joys and the power of reading

[Andrea Penrose]

I got Grimm's fairy tales as well! And also so many of the classic dog stories. I particularly remember Wolf of Badenoch.

[Andrea Penrose]

It's so fun to see what eclectic readers we all were as kids, Curiosity is GOOD!

[Annette N]

I have loved reading and books for a very long time. I went to bookmobiles and got to carry home many books to read.
My father subscribed to the Book of the Month Club. I read all the books he received. Most of them were WWII books. And I read them from the second grade on. I read as many adult books as I read children's books. I loved Nancy Drew stories but I also loved Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and They Were Expendable.
I have had the joy of working in libraries, starting a library in a small town and reading the heck out of books from libraries. I just cannot imagine not reading. I am so lucky to be a reader.

[Kareni]

What a great discovery that must have been, Lynn. Interestingly, I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Hobbit; The Wizard of Oz; and the Pooh books as an adult. Those James Michener books I was reading at twelve clearly took up a goodly amount of my time!

[Constance]

Kareni - I loved reading cereal boxes - and since each of our four family members ate a different cereal, I had plenty of choice! Thanks for bringing back a happy memory!

[Constance]

Pamela Ruth and Andrea - Three cheers to you both!

[Constance]

Like Annette, I read adult books at an early age - mostly the Reader’s Digest Condensed books stored in the bookshelves in the headboard of the bed I used at my grandmothers’s. And my love for New Zealand started when I read Katherine Mansfield at age 10. But I also remember very fondly a series of biographies in our elementary school library. They had blue cloth covers and illustrations that were black silhouettes. Clara Barton, Louisa May Alcott, Amelia Earhart and Florence Nightingale were my favorites in the series. Thanks to that series, I’ve been an avid reader of biographies ever since!

[Andrea Penrose]

I cannot imagine life without reading either, Annette. It opens up your mind and sparks your curiosity.

I, too, read adult books when I was younger. I remeber being fascinated by Jaacques Couteau and his marine biology research.

[Andrea Penrose]

The elementary school biographies got me interested in history. A lot of them were about American figures in history, like George Washington, Paul Revere and the Swamp Fox. I glommed through them!

[Kareni]

It was definitely my pleasure, Constance!

[Janice J.]

In my house as a kid there were bookshelves built into the wall on either side of the living room fireplace, and there was a miscellany of books there from who knows where. As soon as I was old enough I would park myself behind a chair there and go through the books.

My father was not, so far as I know, a pleasure reader, but my mother was; she liked mysteries and tales of far places. Before I left home she gave me one of her favorites, The Vermilion Gate by Lin Yutang, which I still have. There also I found boys' adventure books by GW Henty (which probably belonged to my father at some point) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian adventures, which was wild stuff in those days, and I devoured them. When I was a little older and the times were momentarily a little more flush, we belonged to the Book of the Month Club, and that's where I read Hemingway and other posh novelists of the day. But in general my folks were not great book readers; I was the only one who went to the library and the only one who had her own bookcase in her room, filled with science fiction and animal stories, especial Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry. My parents were more magazine and newspaper readers; my mother would often be found taking a break with cigarettes and coffee and the latest Perry Mason serial in the Saturday Evening Post.

I don't know how I got to be such a continual reader except that I liked reading and there wasn't much else to do, really. But a lifelong reading habit is not a bad thing at all; it helped me throughout school. I learned good standard grammar effortlessly through seeing it role modeled in the books I read, and I picked up a lot of random information as well.

I also had pen pals back in the day when we wrote letters. I had access to a typewriter so that was easy for me. I had one pen pal in England who sent me all the Beatles albums as they were released, in exchange for Elswyth Thane hardcovers. She was crazy about early American history, especially the Revolution and the Civil War, and I was crazy about the Beatles, so it was a win-win situation.

So while reading wasn't a super big deal in my house growing up, it was considered okay to do. TV was just beginning and radio drama was dying, so we all turned to books and magazines for entertainment, and I think we were the better for it.