My uncle jack gave me the most wonderful books when i was a little girl, and i have kept them as if they were golden treasures. they were mostly birthday gifts each year, and one of them THE ADVENTURES OF CAROLINE AND HER FRIENDS is one of my greatest possessions. i loved the book so much that i had it recovered to the tune of $50 a long time ago. it has turned out to be one of the most sought after and valuable books out there. apparently only a few of the books were printed in english (the author, pierre probst, was french.) the books were about a little girl, caroline, and her animal friends, and the wonderful adventures they went on. each of the creatures had their own personalities, and when you turned a page, you could almost predict what that particular character would be doing in the scenario! throughout my whole life, i only saw one copy of this book, and it was in the library of bayside elementary school which i attended from first to third grade. as an adult, i finally went to the library of congress in d.c. and was able to see other caroline books! the author wrote a number of them, but i had never seen but the one book which i had. the books were in french, but the animals and their illustrations were such a joy to look at. later, i had my friend mary jean kelly lowe purchase some of the books in france, as she lives in paris. she translated them for me and sent them over.
i have a lovely book called LORNA in which a photographer took a doll that looked like barbie all over europe, photographing her as she struggled through a fairy tale. the photography was gorgeous, and it is again a book that i have never seen elsewhere. there were other books that my uncle gave me, including a cookbook when i was a middle schooler, and my first copy of THE JOY OF COOKING. he still sends me clippings from the papers that he thinks i would be interested in. i am happy to say that i think the built the foundation for my love of books.
one of my memories of childhood is my mother sitting on the stoop of our house in diamond lake estates reading to me before the bus came to take me to school. we were on split shift that year, and half the year i went to school from 8-12 and the other half from 12-4. apparently the school was overcrowded and this was what they had to do to free up the rooms. in any case, i remember her doing that, and my looking down the street as the bus slowly made its way towards us. i don't know what she was reading to me, but i do remember her doing that. she also ordered some books for me...BLACK BEAUTY, HEIDI, LITTLE WOMEN. i remember when they came in the mail and they seemed so wonderful and older than the books i was being read at the time. my mother also signed me up for the BEGINNERS book club and each month books came. the first ones i got were GO DOG GO, GREEN EGGS AND HAM, ONE FISH TWO FISH, RED FISH BLUEFISH, and PUT ME IN THE ZOO. not all of the books were written by Dr. Seuss. i would get one or two books a month and there were lots of books! i had all of the CAT IN THE HAT books, HOP ON POP, TEN APPLES ON TOP. at some point the books became less interesting and my mother stopped the club. i believe that she gave those books to my cousins after i had stopped reading them. they would be worth a lot of money today, but more than that, they would be worth a lot to me for the joy they brought me on rainy days as well as having my mother read them to me.
i have a memory of my mother reading HEIDI to me and my eating cracker barrel cheddar cheese while she was doing it. it was fitting, as i recall the book talked about heidi and cheese:)
when i went to elementary school i discovered the school library. from there i found books that i would check out over and over. those were books about davy crockett and daniel boone. when austin was younger, i went on line and started buying up copies of the books i loved as a child. he never read them, but i was overjoyed to find them and they are on the shelves of his book case. i still have the hardback copies of all of the wonderful marguerite henry horse books. my parents gave those to me at christmastime, and i remember marking them in the pages of the sears & roebuck catalog. they were hardback books with paper covers, wonderful books with wesley dennis illustrations. those books are in an old suitcase that belonged to my mother on the bottom of my closet. books that i did not have i ordered. i read all of her books, but didn't own all of them. one of the things on my bucket list was to see the pony penning on chincoteague, and that was a direct result of reading the MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE books! i have been to the island, but have missed the pony penning.
one of the things that they did when we were in school was to have book fairs and book periodicals. the periodicals were just printed fliers with a number of books for our age that we could order. there was a little coupon that you filled out. you gave it and the money to the teacher, and when the books came in it was a wonderful thing. the book fairs were bigger and the books were not paperbacks, but hardback. they cost more. i bought one book on cats and i believe i used my own money. i still have many of those paperbacks that ordered up through middle school. as i got older, i just changed what i read, but i don't think i was ever without books.
my mother was an avid reader and took us to the book mobile in the janaf shopping center in norfolk. i can remember getting a book called WINKEN, BLINKEN AND NOD. i am sure there were other books and she let me pick out what i wanted and i would take them home. this tradition continued up through high school when a bookmobile came to the safeway shopping center once a week. i would go up there and check out books and sometimes order books from the library to be brought to me the next week. eventually i went to libraries with my mother. when she would go to janaf on saturdays to get her hair done, i went next door to the library there and read or checked out books. when we moved to richmond, one of the saving graces for me was that my mother found the closest library, which was a little tiny one in bon air. we went a lot and i moved on to adult books. the first author that snagged me was leon uris and his book EXODUS. i read all of the books that he wrote and i became fascinated with the arab israeli conflict. i had to read books in school for english class, but i rapidly found that i only wanted to read what i wanted to read, and that did NOT include TESS OF THE DURBERVILLES or any other sort of british lit. i did read LORD OF THE FLIES in 9th grade and learned about symbolism. THE OUTSIDERS was a major book in my life and it was one of the genre creating books that defined teenage literature. up until that year 1967, there really were no books for girls other than NANCY DREW or THE HARDY BOYS for boys. i got a TRIXIE BELDEN mystery book when i was in the 5th grade, and that lead me to spending my money at King's department store purchasing all of those books as often as i could. i also have kept those books as well and all of these books bring me a lot of comfort and pleasure just holding them and looking over them.
books have transported me to many places and were an oasis for me when i was a kid. i spent most of my middle school years devouring books, especially after we moved to richmond and i had no friends. however, i did have friends in books and when we traveled i always took books with me. when we went to colorado in 1970 i took the whole series of books about elsa the lion, which was the BORN FREE series by joy adamson. ginny tudor, a friend down the street who was several years older than me and had a job at thalhimers bought them for me the night before we left and i was so happy to have gotten them before the dreaded trip. i spent time lying in the back of warnie and uncle harry's station wagon reading about africa and lions while the station wagon lumbered across the heart of america on its way to colorado and a dude ranch.
as time goes on, the books i own become more valuable price wise, but in many ways they are priceless to me. austin is not and never has been a reader himself, so these books were never a part of his life. he loved being read to, especially about dinosaurs and he loved the CAROLINE book. he was read to up through the harry potter books, which bebo read to him. but when bebo left, austin never finished the books. he didn't want to read on his own, and that is when he literally stopped reading. my hope is that maybe i will have grandchildren who want to read and might enjoy these old books. maybe by writing this i will give them some history about myself and who i am and how these printed things shaped my life and created a love of learning for me.
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