Friday Five

1. What were your favorite childhood stories?

I liked animal stories almost to the exclusion of anything else. I didn't read many of the so-called classics until later because of this. However, I also remember the Whitman adaptations of TV series, the Danny Dunn books, etc. If my mom didn't buy it for me, I had to get it from the limited school library. We were not in walking distance of any larger libraries.

(Daniel Taylor mentioned not reading anything like Dr. Seuss. The only Seuss I ever heard was in school. Seuss books were in hardback and we couldn't afford them. I remember the teacher reading us The 500 Hats of Bartholemew Cubbins and liking it, though. Never read The Cat in the Hat.)

2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?

Oh, dear...all of them! But especially Roller Skates, Little Women, the Windy Foot books, Anne H. White's animal stories, Anne of Green Gables...

3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?

Not really surprised, but interesting that so many of the books we are told are "kids' books" are so violent--but then they weren't written as children's books originally anyway. I'm talking about books like Black Beauty, Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Beautiful Joe. Of course, many other books we think of as "children's classics" weren't written for kids, either. Like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, for instance, or Anne of Green Gables, or My Friend Flicka.

4. How old were you when you first learned to read?

Five going on six. My mother probably would have taught me, but all she made me learn was my alphabet because she was told not to teach me to read. She was advised it would make it "harder" for me in school.

5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you?

Well, if you consider that the books I mentioned in the answer to #3 were really adult books that have been turned to "kid's books" due to their subject matter, then I was probably 7 or 8 and it was either Black Beauty or Beautiful Joe. If you still consider them children's books, then it was most probably William Johnston's Get Smart! novel, and I was ten.

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:09:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment