Something about my previous blog, and those baseball caps hanging in the breeze, made me think about my favorite childhood books. Remember this one?
Oh my gosh! I loved Caps for Sale when I was a kid, and I loved reading it to my own kids. It was first published in 1940 and it is the sweet story of a peddler who sells caps.
Until monkeys steal all of his caps.
And he has to come up with all kinds of plans to get them back.
I copied this from a review on Amazon "You need this one if you would like children to learn how to make predictions, recognize patterns, sequence events, and notice setting elements. " Who knew? I always just loved it for its wonderful fun story, colorful illustrations, funny monkeys, and the giggles and laughs of little children as you read it to them. I love, love , love this book!
But No Elephants is a lesser known book and I think I bought it for my kids from Scholastic. It's the story of a kind-hearted grandma who buys pets from a traveling salesman. She draws the line at elephants, though. My kids loved it and they asked for it more than any other book when they were little. I never heard much about it over the years. Funny thing is, years later, when my oldest daughter married and had a baby of her own, her mother-in-law sent this book to her and said it was one of her son's childhood favorites, too. It's now one of our grandbaby boy's favorite books.
So, so sweet. I just love how families' traditions combine and grow and become more meaningful over the years.
Our children grew up in Boston and we spent much of their childhood vacationing in Maine so the Robert McCloskey books were big favorites. We especially loved Make Way for Ducklings.
Our oldest daughter was born when we lived on 57th and 6th Avenue in New York City. That's about two blocks from the Plaza Hotel. I took her for tea there when she was a tiny little girl. She loved the story of Eloise and I think she enjoyed imagining what it would be like to actually live at the grand and elegant Plaza Hotel.
She always loved Madeline too, maybe imagining herself in Paris. This daughter grew-up loving to travel and took advantage of every opportunity to live in other countries, including going to summer school in Salamanca, Spain and spending a semester abroad in Chile.
As a little girl, our middle daughter was always offering to help. She still does. I'm thinking it might be a middle-child thing but I will leave that to the experts. While writing this post I asked her for her favorite childhood book and she said, "Herman the Helper," it's about a very helpful octopus.
She also loved Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown who, of course, also wrote Goodnight Moon. Over and over, the mother bunny tells her little bunny "Wherever you go, I will find you." What sweet, reassuring words.
I emailed our youngest daughter and asked her for her favorite books. Without hesitation, she said But No Elephants and Nancy Drew.
This daughter loves figuring things out. While she was growing-up, she read and collected all of the Nancy Drew books. She is now in law school and still has her collection of Nancy Drews.
When I sat down to write this, I was thinking about those baseball caps and those monkeys. Now I'm thinking about this sweet little guy and how fun it will be to see if his favorite childhood books influence the person he becomes. Or, does he choose his favorites because that is who he already is? Who knows?? Even the experts don't know the answer to that one! All I know is what a joy he is.
Ok, here is one of my favorites.
I read it to my little girls when they were growing-up in New England. It's about what to expect when you travel to my part of the world. Recommended reading before a visit to the Mud House.
With all of the technology today, there is simply no substitute for sitting down with a real book and reading to a child. There are so many, many reasons why, and so many, many wonderful books. For me, it is simply magical. It is truly the sweetest thing.
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