Books from yesteryear

This weekend my faithful partner and youngest boy, Joe, and I hit some garage sales. We scored big! Among Joe's favorites was a familiar book by James Marshall called Miss Nelson is Missing. We bought it, along with some other books, for a quarter each.


As we snuggled up together on Sunday morning to read it, memories flooded my mind. I used to sit with my older boys to read this same book. Joe was not even a thought in our minds yet when John and Jeremy first discovered this gem. John loved Detective McSmogg, and Jeremy loved the descriptions of the children flying paper airplanes around the room. To this day he has a penchant for paper airplanes.

One of the reasons that my boys loved this book so much, I think, is because I told them that I used to read it when I was a little girl. With a copyright of 1977, I was only 6 when this book was published. I have memories of seeing this book on my public school teachers' shelves, and of borrowing this book from the library.

Many times I will assign reading to the boys and they will give me the I don't want to read a girl book face. I have to explain to them that I am a girl who read the book, yes, but that does not make it a girl book exclusively. They took Charlotte's Web, and Little House on the Prairie, and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and Ramona the Pest and read them. A chapter or two into the book and all complaints ceased. Good writing is like that. It captures your attention and holds you, makes you yearn for more.

It fills me with pride and joy to see my boys enjoying the books that I enjoyed as a child. And, between you and me, I still do some of them as read alouds because I love them so much. Although they are still amused when I am boo-hooing it up at the end of Charlotte's Web.

What books have you read as a child that your children now enjoy?