CCBC-Net Archives

[CCBC-Net] Life-changing books

From: Kbshepler at aol.com <Kbshepler>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 23:06:39 EDT

What fun! Like many, I have been enjoying this thread...
  I jumped for joy when I discovered the reprinting of THE GOLDEN BOOK OF FAIRY TALES illustrated by Adrienne Segur. How many hours I spent lost in those lush pictures (each alternating full page illustration either full color or sepia tone.)
  Unfortunately the book of poetry I also found late in life that meant so much to me as a child is packed away (how did that happen?) so I cannot quote the title and illustrator. How many times I read " ... up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen/ we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men" - I am transported just typing the words.
  The first books I truly remember being read to me were the RAGGEDY ANN and RAGGEDY ANDY series. I can understand how a very young child relates to books when I look at any of those titles. I must have undergone a cellular change and left this world in order to physically enter those stories. When I look at the stylized Gruelle flowers with their splotches of color, I can remember wandering among them and having them seem just about my height! Who need hallucinogens?
  Much more pedestrian was a teen (tween?) obsession with anything 'nurse'. I knew exactly what I was going to do when I grew up: I would go to Stanford and enroll in a 5 year program to obtain a Masters in Nursing. So I read every title I could get my hands on of Cherry Ames and Sue Barton. (No, smile, I did
 not fulfill those particular dreams: I went to Cal and studied art history!)
  Such fun remembering.
  Kathy
  Kathy Shepler, Librarian Aurora School Oakland, CA
Received on Wed 24 May 2006 10:06:39 PM CDT