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re series, How I loved them
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From: sallywrites_at_fuse.net
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:53:08 -0400
the Maida books, I mean, with their bright orange covers and their blue endpapers with the white polka-dots! I still have a good dozen Maidas on the high, recessed shelf of our living room wall. Some of the volumes, though, are a disconcerting blue, later editions from the years when my daughter was young. In talks to school groups I tell students that it was Maida's Little Shop that made me decide I would be a writer when I grew up, and I explain that what I loved about the books was my feeling that I'd made a new group of friends, the Big Six, who later became the Big Eight. I had such a feeling of safety when I was immersed in Maida's world. I knew these people, grown-ups and children alike. I knew how they behaved, what they were likely to do or say. People in my world were often unpredictable, sometimes dangerously so, I felt, but not in Maida's. When I was nine or ten, lying on my bed reading a Maida book was like curling up with a pacifier or a favorite blanket. A year or so later I discovered Mary Po ppins, who had been "born" the same year as I. I read the first two books over and over and was so excited when a new one, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, came out in 1943. My copy says it was "manufactured in strict uniformity with Government regulations for conserving paper and other essential materials." It's well-loved but decidedly shoddy
When my sons were young, they also loved series books--Freddy the Detectives, Encyclopedia Browns, and--of course--the Hardy Boys. (We still had a few of my husbands' old copies.)
I know children in other countries have loved Sylvia Waugh's Mennym stories, as I do, but somehow the books don't seem to have caught on here as well as in Great Britain and Europe. What a shame!
I am hoping that the Anna Hibiscus books will become as popular as they deserve to. Is anyone seeing signs of that happening?
At this point, can anyone have any doubt about the continuing popularity of series books? We all seem to have been having fun discussing them, judging from the number of posts and the rapidity with which they've been arriving.
Happy Reading to All.
Sally Derby
Received on Tue 09 Aug 2011 03:53:08 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:53:08 -0400
the Maida books, I mean, with their bright orange covers and their blue endpapers with the white polka-dots! I still have a good dozen Maidas on the high, recessed shelf of our living room wall. Some of the volumes, though, are a disconcerting blue, later editions from the years when my daughter was young. In talks to school groups I tell students that it was Maida's Little Shop that made me decide I would be a writer when I grew up, and I explain that what I loved about the books was my feeling that I'd made a new group of friends, the Big Six, who later became the Big Eight. I had such a feeling of safety when I was immersed in Maida's world. I knew these people, grown-ups and children alike. I knew how they behaved, what they were likely to do or say. People in my world were often unpredictable, sometimes dangerously so, I felt, but not in Maida's. When I was nine or ten, lying on my bed reading a Maida book was like curling up with a pacifier or a favorite blanket. A year or so later I discovered Mary Po ppins, who had been "born" the same year as I. I read the first two books over and over and was so excited when a new one, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, came out in 1943. My copy says it was "manufactured in strict uniformity with Government regulations for conserving paper and other essential materials." It's well-loved but decidedly shoddy
When my sons were young, they also loved series books--Freddy the Detectives, Encyclopedia Browns, and--of course--the Hardy Boys. (We still had a few of my husbands' old copies.)
I know children in other countries have loved Sylvia Waugh's Mennym stories, as I do, but somehow the books don't seem to have caught on here as well as in Great Britain and Europe. What a shame!
I am hoping that the Anna Hibiscus books will become as popular as they deserve to. Is anyone seeing signs of that happening?
At this point, can anyone have any doubt about the continuing popularity of series books? We all seem to have been having fun discussing them, judging from the number of posts and the rapidity with which they've been arriving.
Happy Reading to All.
Sally Derby
Received on Tue 09 Aug 2011 03:53:08 PM CDT
