Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Day 20: Ah, childhood
In today's post: Childhood book memories, an article on the lasting impact of those stories, and bitter sweet nostalgia.
Today has been one of those days where I am just damn sick and tired of being an adult. Oddly enough, yesterday I asked everyone for their thoughts and memories of their favorite children's book. I received many nice emails recounting dozens of books and the stories behind a favorite. It was -- should I say it? -- heart-warming. Here's some the title mentioned. Tell me you don't get a little veklempt.
- Velvetine Rabbit
- The Little Red Hen
- Never Give a Moose a Muffin
- Harold and the Purple Crayon
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Where the Wild Things Are (most mentioned!)
- Tintin -- the adventures of a boy reporter
- The Hungry Caterpillar
- The Lonely Doll
- Pierre: A Cautionary Tale by Maurice Sendak
- From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler
- The Mitten by Jan Brett
And here are my two favorite comments:
"The Happy Prince -- it's a heartbreaker about a statue and a bird of some kind (a swallow?) that become friends. The statue observes people throughout the city below, some of them in dire straits for whatever reason. He has the swallow take jewels that are embedded in his sword and give them to these people, until he begins to run out of jewels. Finally, he asks the swallow to take the jewels that are his eyes and give them away, so that he is ultimately blind. I swear it killed me every time."
"Poppyseed Cakes. It was an old (1930s?) book about a little boy, a grandmother who makes the beloved poppyseed cakes, and a green goose
who steals them, and so on. The pictures were either woodblock prints or along those lines. It had a strangeness to it, both because it was
Eastern European and because it was so old, and if I saw it today it would probably give me butterflies."
Oddly enough I also found this: Children's literature has lasting impact.
Photo from: http://richardz.com/photoblog
Photo from: http://richardz.com/photoblog
