The zinnias are blooming.
Always a sign that we’re entering late summer. Soon (hopefully) we’ll see the morning glories as well. Last year, one of the morning glories bloomed and the other didn’t. Fingers crossed. The moonflowers? Well, they’re growing very, very, very slowly. We’ll see.
Every year is a different story when you’re gardening. Very little is predictable.
It’s a gray day out there, with rain on the way this afternoon. In the meantime, we have to mow the front lawn, at the very least. It’s getting quite long.
I’m reading Bookworm by Lucy Mangan, a memoir of childhood reading. It’s very entertaining. But I also have to choose a novel – maybe Transcription by Kate Atkinson. When I’m traveling, I like to take a novel in which I can lose myself during the flight. Atkinson might be perfect. I briefly considered A Book of Ghosts by John Connolly, but at 600 pages plus and a hardcover to boot, it’s not the most packable of books.
The next chapter in Bookworm is about Dr. Seuss. Should be interesting. I have a confession to make about Dr. Seuss. I never liked those books. There, I’ve said it. I owned The Cat in the Hat and If I Ran the Circus. They were read to me many times and when I could read, I would give them another try to see if my mind had been changed. Nope. I never liked them. I found the characters annoying. I didn’t particularly like the illustrations either.
Years later, when The Old Globe premiered the How the Grinch Stole Christmas (with the blessing of Audrey Geisel, Theodore Geisel’s widow – they lived in La Jolla) Don originated the role of Old Max. I briefly worked on the show. But I still didn’t care for the story and the thought of having to perform it throughout the Christmas season would have sent me over the edge. (That may be the reason that Don declined the offer to do it again the next year. Once was enough.)
I’m sure that I’m the rare exception and I’m fine with that. I also wasn’t a big fan of cartoons. I got bored by them pretty easily. Go figure.
Today, work on deductions. Mowing.
Exciting, right?
What books did you love as a child?
Happy Saturday.
I loved “Le vilain petit canard” (The ugly duckling) by Andersen :o)
What is the name of the plant on the last photo. The one with purple and green ? it is beautiful.
Here it is raining at last :o) Have a nice weekend.
It is Coleus, Helene. There are a lot of different varieties.
Have a lovely weekend.
My Little Golden Book collection was vast and I loved each one in succession. But far and away my favorite was Mrs. Ticklefeather, who lived on the top of a very tall building with her puffin, Paul. A friend found a copy of that one and sent it to me a few years ago and I treasure it.
Grey day at the lake, too, with sister company to share it. Happy Weekend!
How nice that you have a copy of your favorite! Enjoy, Shanna.
I spy a spider in the zinnia!
Yes. Sometimes I deliberately don’t mention the bugs and then wait to see who catches sight of them!
Zinnias are the most cheerful flowers. So lovely and welcoming.
Bookworm is now a must read. I agree you about Dr. Seuss. I read them to my Young Fives and Kindergarten classes, though, because of the predictable text. The little ones caught the rhythm and rhyme and the books helped with transitioning to “independent reading”. I always enjoyed “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” (probably because of the magical elements).
As a child, I loved the Carbonel series by Barbara Sleigh. I loved “No Fighting, No Biting” by Elsie Holmelund Minarik with illustrations by Maurice Sendak so much that when my former elementary library was discarding the book because of damage, the librarian gave me the fragile old book.
Maurice Sendak was a treasure, Ingrid. Thank you!
I also loved the Carbonel series. It was later in my life that I discovered there were three in the series.
Michelle
I like that little yellow flower! I collected all the Andrew Lang books of fairy stories when I was young and have them still. I like watching the youtube channel called Merveilles Enpapier where a wonderful French artist creates characters from fairy tales all from paper. She makes dollhouses too!
I’ll have to check out that YouTube channel, Barbara. Sounds like something I would like!
‘Bookworm’ is wonderful. I enjoyed it so much as, though she is a few years younger than me, I shared much of her history of reading. More importantly, she writes with a wonderful northern sense of humour and a true insight into the way we bookworms think. She didn’t like Dr Seuss. I never came across him as a child. I think I read this book three times on the trot to really get every morsel out of it.
I never liked Dr Seuss either. I loved reading the Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Still have that hardcover book with the black and white checkerboard cover! In fourth grade I started reading fairy tales. They were also a great favorite of mine.
I really need to plant zinnias in my garden. I see them on your blog and they are so colorful! Do you plant them as seeds?
Yes, Patty. I plant seeds, usually the first week in May.
I remember that Mother Goose edition very clearly!
It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one, Karen!
I never knew there were people that didn’t like Dr, Seuss. Naive of me!
My mom made sure we had books to read, and before we could read she read to us. For hours at a time. It can’t be read now, but I remember Little Black Sambo, and not realizing. I remember Caps for Sale. That was a favorite. The Jungle Book. We had too many Golden Books to count. They had their own book case.
My brother and I both read just about anything we get our hands on now. It doesn’t feel right if I am not reading.
Yes, we had lots of Little Golden Books, as well. Such lovely memories, Trudy.
I don’t think I really liked or disliked Dr. Seuss. Today I love seeing bits and pieces of the “wisdom” from so many of the books. Our kids each received a couple of copies of Oh, the Places You Will Go when they graduated from HS which has become such a traditional gift. When I was a Library Science minor back in college (back in the day when that was an actual minor), I remember he was an excellent example of cross reference of an author as he was referred to as Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel, and I believe it was Ted LeSieg, all the same person. And I will say that I truly love Seusical the Musical. I cry every single time. Love some of those songs.
We are having a lovely day here today with a bit more humidity. Rain and clouds are in the forecast for the next several days. Everything is growing like crazy, including the grass. And the tomatoes are out of control!! I think the tomatoes are what I miss most in the dead of winter. Have a good day, kiddo!!
I met his wife, back when we were doing Grinch.
Try as I might – and I did try – I just didn’t like his writing.
Humid here. We mowed the lawn and storms are coming later, so I’m back inside staying cool. Thanks, Chris!
I loved “The Red Coat” but don’t remember the author. I also loved “Nancy and Plum” and any other stories about orphans. Those books always tugged at my heart. The Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald. We had the Big Book of 365 bedtime stories. I read those during the day because we didn’t get stories at bedtime. I could read as many stories as I wanted with no stopping to sleep!
I had a teacher who read the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books to us, and I asked my mother to buy them for my brother and me.
xo
Wonderful! Even to this day, the thought that I can read without stopping is heaven!
My parents had no idea that I’d found a little flashlight and, after bedtime and ‘lights out’, I’d still be reading for hours after I was supposed to be sleeping, which I guess is why sometimes Mom had a difficult time rousing me to start the next day’s school morning! I’m sure I had eye strain; I’d had to wear eyeglasses from the age of 10. The doctor had said it was probably inherited (the nearsightedness) from my mother, who’d had to wear glasses from the time of early teens … but I think it was more than genes with me!
I’m willing to bet we all snuck in after-hours reading, Vicki.
OMG, I had that 365 Bedtime Stories book; what am I saying, I still have it; we kept it. What-A-Jolly-Street. I spent hours and hours pouring over it. Haven’t seen it for years; it’s somewhere in my ‘storage’. You can get it from Amazon in paperback, new; I just looked it up; same cover as mine from late 50s or early 60s (???), with the kids sitting with Grandma and kitty plus dog. But apparently the pages are b&w in the ‘new’ paperback reprint; not the color illustrations we’d remember. And I guess this reprint also does NOT have the street map, which was one of the most important things! Author Nan Gilbert. I think it was published in 1955, back in the day; hard to find too much info about it just now; obviously a memory, though, for a lot of boomers!
Green Eggs and Ham aggravated me. If Sam I am was a real person, I think I would have slapped him or take a breaker bar to him. LOL. I do have a favorite of Dr. Suess and that is Horton laid an egg. The fact that he got tricked into protecting the egg and he overcame by becoming the mother made an impression. And Are you my mother was another favorite because my daughter liked it. And because of that book, when my daughter saw her first backhoe she called it a “Snort”. Has become one of our favorite family stories. I read to my daughter all the time when she was little. We would leave the library with 15 or 20 books.
Yes, my mom would do the same. We loved going to our local bookmobile and coming home with stacks of books!
Nancy Drew all day. I can’t count the times I got in trouble for reading under the covers after lights out.
All of Alcott, although “An Old Fashioned Girl” And “Jack and Jill” were my favorites. “A Little Princess” and “The Secret Garden”. Nancy Drew And Cherry Ames, and before that The Bobbsey Twins and Honey Bunch. Wasn’t much for Dr. Seuss, but liked “The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.” I was blessed with reading parents; there were bookcases in every room and nothing was off-limits.
Yes, I had Jack and Jill (my mother’s copy) on my bookshelf. And Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames, and all the rest.
Beverly Cleary – my favorite.
My dad wasn’t a big reader, but my mom was and I thank her to this day.
An Old Fashioned Girl was my mother’s and I still have it.
I think we had that on our ‘Mom’s Childhood Books’ shelf.
Most of my childhood was spent reading books from the library. I used to love Enid Blyton as an author but with hindsight her books were so priggish and quite likely politically incorrect. My favourites of hers were The Secret Seven, a gang of youngsters who formed a club and solved mysteries and I also adored her boarding school series, St. Claire’s and Mallory Towers where girls had midnight feasts. She wrote prolificly from the 1940s onwards.
I can remember reading in the 1960s, Meet the Austins about an American family, I remember being impressed by the modern cover. I used re borrow it all the time.
I found Bookworm to be really interesting when I read it last year.
Happy Saturday
Well, that takes me back! When I was in elementary school, we were sent loads of Enid Blyton every Christmas from relatives in the UK. My favourites were St. Clare’s and the “Adventure” series with Kiki the parrot et al. Have you seen the film “Enid” with Helena Bonham Carter?
Hi Barbara – yes I have seen it. Enid wasn’t a particularly nice woman, she seemed to adore her readers but have very little time for her two daughters! One of them, Imogen wrote an unflattering biography of her, I did read it years ago.
Dee Dee x
I’ve heard so much about Enid Blyton, but have never read any of her books as they weren’t around here in the States.
Mistress Mashams Repose, Swiss Family Robinson, the Little House Books, The Once and Future King!
Loved the Little House books. Read every one of them!
Ah, when I was reminiscing here, completely forgot about the Laura Ingalls Wilder books; of course, they were staple reading for us boomer girls (and their popularity continues, so what a testament to the author).
xo
I loved them all with the exception of Swiss Family Robinson which I found too preachy. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, writer Rose Wilder Lane, lived in my hometown when I was growing up.
I think what I liked about Swiss family Robinson, is the same thing I liked about the little house books, the descriptions of how things were done. The little house books are probably responsible for my love of hands on history. I worked as an historical interpreter in a Mennonite family farm home restored to 1857 for a number of years.
And I spent my working life in 19th century house museums. We seem to have been similarly influenced.
Claudia I never much liked cartoons either. A few Disney movies as a child (I sobbed during Bambi) but mostly I loved any book that was read to me. Don’t remember Dr Seuss until my children and they weren’t my favorite either. I loved Nancy Drew and Little House on the Prairie series. I had a book about Ballet (which I somehow still have even if its in tatters) and it was one of my favorite of all time. Gosh its fun to think back on favorite books.
Same here – loved Nancy Drew and Little House books.
I was the only child in my family of 6 kids who liked to read, so my presents were often – and happily – lots of books for birthdays & Christmases. Peter Rabbit & little Golden books as a preschooler. Then, once I could read, mostly classics like “The Bobbsey Twins,” the Betsy-Tacy series, “My Friend Flicka,” “Black Beauty,” the Nancy Drew & Trixie Belden series, “The Wind in the Willows” etc. I had a spinster aunt who LOVED to give books & I loved to get them. I remember asking for – and getting – a biography of Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt when I was 12 or so – and that set me off on one of my favorite genres – biography. I also had 3 girl cousins on my Mom’s side who were a little older than me and inherited a lot of the books they read once they’d finished with them – “Cherry Ames, Student Nurse” and those kind of books. They always sent down their discarded teen magazines too, like “Seventeen” and “Co-Ed.” Anyone remember “Co-Ed?” It was smallish – like Readers Digest size – and full of articles, projects, recipes etc for teen girls. I PORED over those – so much fun! Raining here now – it’s probably heading your way. Peace.
🌧🌧🌧
#Resist
#ImpeachTrump
I loved those magazines! I remember them well!
I loved “Black Beauty” and read it many times. Also, “Lad, A Dog” and “The Black Stallion.” And “Mary Poppins”.
Wonderful stories, Terri. Classics.
I loved The Bobbsey Twins,Honey Bunch Series, the Golden books, Black Beauty and the giant story books with 300 plus stories. I still read young adult books from time to time. I even read children’s books occasionally.
Marilyn
I’ve been hankering to read the Little House series again, Marilyn.
I’m conscious of some similarities, Claudia! I really never watched cartoons on TV either; never too into Mickey Mouse although I liked Disney’s book on Cinderella (pretty illustrations); totally into The Jetsons animation on TV. I also never have been a reader of the newspaper ‘funnies’ or comic books of any kind.
Somehow in my childhood reading at home and at school, I never was exposed to Seuss or Winnie The Pooh, Babar, anything by Maurice Sendak or any of the Fun with Dick and Jane books. Also, horrors, I don’t remember reading the ‘real’ Peter Rabbit books at all, nor did I read any of the ‘shoe’ books by Noel Streatfeild (so, I have a lot of gaps and I have never quite understood why, as I thought my U.S. public-school education was darn good, and I was one of the lucky ones in the 1950s who was even able to attend preschool which I know was difficult for my parents because they never had a lot of money).
I liked the movie version of Wizard of Oz but not the books! (Although I started collecting them after reading you about it, I think when you picked up some beautiful Oz covers – – was it when you went to New Orleans?)
I remember loving Hans Brinker (The Silver Skates) by Mary Mapes Dodge (life in The Netherlands in the 1800s; interesting to me because my grandfather was born there in the 1800s, too; I think the author even wrote the book IN the 1800s). I have earliest memories of The Bobbsey Twins; lots of the little (beloved!) cheapie Golden Books from the dimestore, too. Mr. Piper’s Bus by Eleanor Clymer. Wind in The Willows; The Boxcar Children; The Secret Garden. I loved a book (mid-60s[??], I was age 10 or 11) by Borden Deal called “A Long Way To Go”. The last books I checked out at the children’s library in town before I started sneaking upstairs to the teen/adult stacks, were the Anne of Green Gables series and also a trilogy called Best Friends (at School, in Summer; author Mary Bard); of course, earlier, I just loved anything Beverly Cleary. Nancy Drew, of course.
In my tightknit neighborhood circle, we kids of same age all shared a lot of books (especially in summer, home for weeks-on-end from school) from what modest middle-income families in postwar suburbs had in the house (never a lot of books; people that I knew didn’t have big home librairies then), and some of these books were from our mothers’ childhood/teen years so they were dated, but we loved them anyway, such as Pam’s Paradise Ranch and Thunder in Heaven, 1940s publications (she wrote books about Hawaii; author Armine von Tempski; she’d grown up on a Hawaiian cattle ranch in the earliest 1900s; she was actually born on Maui, ‘way upcountry at Haleakala, the volcano; and SO many years later in my 30s, I made sure when I was on a OTO visit to Hawaii, that I went to Maui and saw that volcano[!!]; in fact, I participated in the fun Haleakala Downhill where you start up at the top [10,000 feet] and take all day to ride mountain bikes down to the sea; I thought it was loads of fun).
Childhood books just inform and form us so greatly, little minds soaking it all in. When I read those aforementioned Best Friends books (I was age 11, 6th grade), one of the fictional friends was a French girl, and it influenced me in wanting to know everything about France, such that I also then chose French over Spanish language class when I went to ‘junior high’ (which is often now called ‘middle school’, 7th-8th grade). Even with handed-down National Geographic magazines – – Mom and I read everything we could get our hands on – – I’d comb over all the featured articles with photos as a kid and dream about the places to go in the world outside of my very-small town. I credit those mags as fostering a love of travel.
We’d spoken here previously also of the wonderful value, indeed in 7th & 8th grade, of the Scholastic Book Service reading program (early 60s in American schools?) where the teacher would order inexpensive paperback books for the students. I had babysitting money where I was paid fifty cents per hour, and fifty cents would buy a book to where I could start building my own little ‘home library’ and books to me were like gold as we had so few in my frugal household. I think some of the paperbacks were even cheaper, like maybe thirty-five cents. I couldn’t wait to get that list from the teacher of what I could actually BUY and KEEP! Even though I was ‘a girl’, I’d read author Robb White’s adventure stories of WWII (I’d read ANYthing!). He’d been in the Navy and was very popular in juvenile fiction. I particularly remember The Survivor. (Long story with me and him; I never met him, but I became acquainted with his former wife across many miles and we corresponded by snail mail for a few years in the 1980s; their daughter is Bailey White who used to be [I know know if she still is] a commentator on NPR and is an author herself.)
In those years where I was age 12-13, I was also reading Gone With The Wind and I do recall getting Michener novels in the school program, such as Hawaii and Tales of the South Pacific.
I read several books as a preteen by the author M. M. Kaye (epic historical/romantic fiction) who was a Brit, writing about India and other farflung places, whose names alone caused me many a daydream, such as Zanzibar; I struck up a writing correspondence with her for awhile, too, all in the days of pen & paper and no internet; she was probably best known for her novel called The Far Pavilions although it wasn’t my favorite; she had a lot of relatives who served in the British Raj and she was born in India; I liked what she published in the the 1950s-60s. She also wrote several crime/detective novels.
In my early 20s, I really liked the adult fiction of Aussie author Colleen McCullough. But I could go on & on with this and your question was about books in childhood!
I forgot to say that I loved your photos today of the zinnias. What child (ah, the memories!) hasn’t planted a zinnia as her first flower with Mom’s help? Yours are delightful. Mine aren’t doing well this year. Zinnias usually don’t need too much help but mine do! I’ve lost a ‘watermelon’-colored one that I’d really liked. Darn. I’m really doing best with (large) potted succulents although lantana grows well here in patches on the back hill (along with Copper Canyon daisy and blue lavender). My roses did pretty well this year. But nothing in my ‘garden’ gets the loving care as yours does, so I get what I get. As I write this, my husband is trimming our golden medallion tree which went into incredible yellow blooms this year, heavily draping with a growth spurt, but it is actually top-heavy and, you know, we’ve got those ‘ol Santa Ana winds coming up after Labor Day, so he had to find a way to stabilize its weight, thin it a bit. We only just planted it five years ago! It’s a tree that performs well in SoCalif.
Every year is different here. The only reliables from year to year are the coneflowers, bee balm, and hydrangeas.
I noted comments by the other readers about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. I never read them. But I learned this about it: Betty MacDonald, author of the Mrs. Piggle series – – as well as the stand-alone novel Nancy and Plum – – was the sister of Mary Bard, who wrote the Best Friends trilogy that I do SO love! My research tells me that Betty created Nancy and Plum as bedtime stories she’d tell her sister, Mary, although Betty was the younger of the two! Apparently it was Mary who pushed Betty into a writing career. It wasn’t until later that Mary herself began to write (Best Friends, the first in the trilogy, was written in 1955 when she was age 51).
I’ve really enjoyed this subject today, Claudia. Thanks for bringing it up. It’s so interesting to hear what other young girls were reading in the same years I had my own nose in the books. There are so many terrific old and new children’s books out there; I’ve collected many of the newer ones over the years (a bit of a hobby). Children’s books aren’t just for children!
I never read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle either – at least, I have no memory of reading those books.
Betty MacDonald also wrote The Egg and I, Onions in the Stew And other adult books.
xo
Yep. I read Gone With the Wind at the same age – and the Scholastic Books were so exciting. I almost always had to check books out of the library, but actually having my own book??? Oh my heavens!
I never liked the Dr. Suess books either, to be honest I found them a bit creepy.
Me too!
So glad you confessed about Dr. Seuss. I never could understand why he was so popular and still is. I didn’t like the illustrations and I didn’t like the writing. We read them to my poor baby brother, but I don’t think he cared for them much either. Fortunately my mom also read us classics like Bambi (leaving out the sad parts), Kipling, Little Golden Books by the cartload (we loved all of them), and fairy tales. I love being read to and one of my all-time favorite movie scenes is when the main character in Wit is so ill, but her former college professor climbs into her hospital bed with her and reads to her. I sob but also feel so comforted. I wouldn’t mind going that way, next to a loving body and a soft voice with well-written words flowing over me. Wow–didn’t know this comment would end up in that direction!! LOL
Yes, that scene is so incredibly moving. I agree.
What gorgeous zinnias! They’re a favorite of mine and mine did zip this year. Some died from neglect as I was at the lake; other seeds just never popped.
Ah, kids books. Looking forward to this post. I never liked the Grinch. All those wonderful books from my childhood I remember from being a bit older. I remember going on a train (!!!) to Detroit to meet my favorite author, Carolyn Haywood, who wrote “Back to School with Betsy” and “Eddie and Louella” when I was in about second grade. And read “Little Women” in third. The first time abridged and the next year, the real deal. And oh, how I loved “Trixie Belden,” Nancy Drew books, and Albert Payson Terhune’s books about collies, like “Lad, a Dog.” I still have most of those and so many more. I see them on my cottage shelf and hope one day our grands will enjoy reading like I did and do.
Children’s books are wonderful, tangible memories of our childhood. You’d love this book I’m reading – Bookworm.
The Black Riders by Violet Needham is a book that I read over and over in my later primary school years. I loved the adventure and the intrigue of the story and the lessons of two different political sides wanting the same outcome for their country, however believing their way was the only way of achieving it.
I came to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in early high school (now middle school) when I was home for a week after being kicked in the head by a horse. Reading them started a lifelong interest in fantasy novels.
Michelle
I’ve never read The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings – for some reason, I just had no interest in them, though my best friend was a huge Hobbit fan and talked about it all the time.
as a kid, i especially loved harriet the spy, twig, the flicka, ricka and dicka books, hans brinker and the silver skates, trixie belden, little house on the prairie and anything about animals … born free about elsa the lion and anything by marguerite henry (misty of chincoteague and brighty of the grand canyon, for example) …
thanks for bringing up this topic … it brings back lots of books i want to re-read (grateful to have some of those old books, gifts from my parents) and lots of happy memories of reading and being read to by my parents. :)
kathy in iowa
Yes, those Marguerite Henry books were wondeful!
Never cared for Dr Seuss books either. I thought the characters were on the mean side. I was afraid of The Cat in the Hat and his cronies, Thing One and Thing Two. My childhood favorite books to read over and over again is Winnie-the-Pooh, The Jungle Book, along with all my Golden Books, especially if the book included paper dolls.
Just found your blog recently. I have been enjoying your photos and stories very much. I look forward to seeing an alert in my inbox that a new one is available.
Enjoy your day!
I thought they were mean, as well!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Lisa.