Once a Bibliophile…

Once a Bibliophile…

Some of the oldest items from my childhood are the books my mother saved. They were my favorites, as evidenced by how worn out they are. I didn’t care what they looked like. I just loved them. By the time I was about two, I had memorized them anyway, so it didn’t matter if they were readable or not.

The oldest one I still have is a cloth book of Mother Goose Rhymes.

The edges are shredded, and loose strings hang off it. Mom wrote inside: From Daddy – March 1947.” I would have been seven months old.

I found a picture online of what it looked like before I destroyed it from loving it so much.

I contained “Baa, baa, Black Sheep,” “Little Bo Peep,” and “Jack and Jill,” among others. I knew them by heart.

I also had an extensive collection of Little Golden Books. I remember titles like “Scuffy the Tugboat,” “The Poky Little Puppy,” and “Tootle.” He was a train.

My favorite was the collection of poetry.

Not only is the cover nearly obliterated, but some of the inside pages are also torn out. (I suspect my brother may have had something to do with this.) This one says: from Aunt Evie and Uncle Ted Christmas 1947.

This is what the original cover looked like. In addition to many others, it contained my favorite: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Swing.” I always loved the description of soaring so high. It was how I felt on a swing.

My grandfather read to me nearly every day of my life. When I was born, my parents lived in the “little house” behind my grandparents’ “big house.” My grandfather started it as a separate bedroom for his father. Eventually Great-grandpa moved to a nursing home, and Dad and Grandpa added a large, sunny kitchen to the living room/bedroom (with a Murphy bed) and half bath. It had only a sink and toilet. My parents had to go to the “big house” to shower or bathe.

My grandfather took the bus to work. When he came home, he walked by the “big house” and tapped on the breakfast room window so my grandmother knew he was home. Then, he came back to the “little house.”

When I was tiny, he held me and talked to me. He walked me around both of the houses pointing out everything he saw. “Picture.” “Book.” (Of course.) “Table.” “Chair.” By the time I was a year old, I had a fifty-two-word vocabulary. My mother didn’t think anyone would believe her, so she wrote all of them down in my baby book as I learned each one.

By the time I was about six months old, he started to read to me. Before long, I had a whole dresser drawer filled with Little Golden Books. Of course, I had my favorites.

Grandpa would read one. Then I would hop off his lap and get another. When he finished, he said it was time for him to go back to the “big house” to eat.

“Just one more, Grandpa.” Yep, I begged. And it worked. I might get him to read another one or two before he finally left for dinner.

When I was sixteen-months old, I memorized “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” You probably know it as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” I always insisted on the original title.

My grandparents had friends over for a party, and Grandpa stood me on the dining room table (probably to Grandma’s consternation), and I recited the whole thing. Can you say “precocious”?

I see the current commercials advising parents to talk, read, and sing to their babies. In my case, I can say it worked.

Once a bibliophile, always a bibliophile.

Did you have a favorite book as a child?