Bibliothèque

Picture found in antique store ~ written on back:  Josephine Walker taken by her father in their library

When I was a child my very favorite past time was reading.  I can remember the first time I read Tom Sawyer – I stayed up way past my bedtime just enthralled.  I remember overhearing my mother telling my father it was okay that I was up that late because I was reading.  Obviously a very good thing.

I have lots of favorites from back then, all depending on how old I was.  A theme that tended to run through the books I liked were children that were self sufficient and able to take care of themselves.  Baby Island, The Box Car Children, The Chronicles of Narnia. 

I also loved books about magic, where a child suddenly came to possess a magical power.  Magic in the Alley, Half Magic and a couple who’s names I can quite remember but the stories I do ~ one about a magic silver acorn that allows the main character to go into a land that is a mirror image of his own or another about a young, self-conscious young girl that has to spend the summer with her relatives and has to get glasses to boot – only the glasses make her wishes come true (some with near disasterous results, like turning her cousin into a squirrel). 

I have memories of Summer days starting out by going out back and picking a bowl of cherries and then laying the the hammock for hours eating and reading Nancy Drew books.  Each day I swore I could never eat another cherry again but the next day I would be up on our old ladder, picking another bowl.

I still have the very first book I can remember getting as a gift.  Raggedy Ann Stories.  Now SHE was self-sufficient; always getting into some kind of trouble like falling into a paint can or having birds steal her hair for their nests.  She was forever having to have her head restuffed or an eye sewn back on.  Pretty gruesome, actually.  She never stopped smiling though.