A Girl and Her Books: A Love Story

My favorite books, you ask? How much time do you have? I come from solid reader stock. My parents read for pleasure, which set a great example. They also set no limitations on what my siblings and I were allowed to read, nor did they outwardly express an attitude that certain reading material was better than another. From cereal boxes to giant books that gave both our minds and our arms great workouts, we read everything that came our way.

They also accepted our critiques of books as important and valid, even if the majority of the reading world disagreed with our take. My mom went head-to-head with my 6^th grade teacher when he demanded I rewrite a book report. He said the report was well written and showed that I had indeed read and understood the book, but he found it utterly unacceptable that I didn’t like the novel. It was Hemingway! He was flabbergasted. My mom stood firm and told him, with me seated next to her, that my being 12 didn’t mean I wasn’t entitled to have and express my opinions. The woman was a rock star.

If you’re raised as a free-range reader, you nibble on a bit of everything and over time, your palate expands. Still, your favorite ingredients guide you and it becomes pretty easy to choose something from the menu that you know will leave you satisfied. For me, my favorite works are almost always character driven. Plot matters, of course, but I must be invested in the characters or I’m left feeling flat. I love stories with groups of wonderfully flawed people, be they friends or family. I like a bit of humor, even in painful tales, and I’m all for some romance, just so the ultimate pairing isn’t the story’s only big win. If Hallmark would be tempted to turn a book into a movie, I’m out. Oh, and I love when authors drop tiny hints but hate when they club the reader over the head. If I wanted to know everything all at once I could just read the first and last chapters. Take me on a ride!

Having spent a great deal of my adult life tending young children, I also have a deep love for children’s literature, from baby and toddler books to well-written YA novels. I have a huge collection of books for ages birth through kindergarten and can tell you after just a quick flip-through at a bookstore whether a certain book will be a hit or a miss with kids and the people who read to them. A handful of our favorites:

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, illustrations by Crockett Johnson This book has been around far longer than I have, but every child I’ve known has loved it. Simple words and illustrations. Lovely.

Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash by Sarah Weeks, illustrations by Nadine Bernard Wescott We also have two other Mrs. McNosh books that the kids and I love too, but my favorite of the three is the squash one. Delightful!

ALL of the Little Blue Truck books by Alice Schertle, illustrations by Jill McElmurry This series of books features a returning cast of characters, positive story messages, and are beautifully illustrated. All sorts of wonderful.

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson, illustrations by Axel Scheffler I love this one. Smart and funny, and you gotta love the clever little mouse!

We All Sing with the Same Voice by J. Philip Miller and Sheppard M. Greene, illustrations by Paul Meisel There’s a segment in an old episode of Sesame Street that shows children singing the words to this book. I’d always loved that little segment and I can’t tell you how excited I was to learn that it was a book. And yes, we sing that one rather than just reading it. Love it!

ALMOST everything by Shel Silverstein My first copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends has been replaced multiple times over the years because after a while, no amount of packing tape can handle the job. His other books get beat up too, but none as much as that one. The only thing Silverstein wrote that I dislike is The Giving Tree (which, much like that Hemingway novel, is beloved, just not by me). People see it a lovely tale of love and selfless giving, which it is…but the boy takes and takes, even after he’s no longer a child. He takes as a young man and even as an old man, interested only in his needs and not what it costs the tree. Blech.

And of course, I can’t walk away without telling you about this last one.

Olive Ewe Seven Days a Week by Elizabeth Grace, illustrations by Sadie Springer Straight up front, I’m that Elizabeth Grace and Sadie is my oldest granddaughter. She painted the illustrations when she was in middle school, though by the time the book was released, she was in high school. Working on the book with Sadie was a genuine joy and even if we’d been the only two people to have ever read it, it would still be one of my favorite things ever. That being said, I really do love the book. We follow Olive through an ordinary week and each time Olive is mentioned, the sentence reads equally well when thinking of her name or its homonym, “I love you.” It’s simple and positive, and the illustrations make my heart happy.

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(GBE Topic #10: Favorite Books, and Why)

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