Melody
is a book fiend. As a child, she had a number of books that were hers, but most
of the books she read either came from the Costa Mesa Public Library or were
school textbooks. That is, until she finished reading all the books in the
children’s section of the library.
That
is when birthdays really came into the picture. Well, all right; birthdays in
the McDonald household were almost as exciting as Christmas and Easter. And
Thanksgiving. Actually, Melody’s birthday was really exciting because Melody’s birthday was two weeks before
Halloween and, more often than not, she got to have a Halloween party and
invite all of her friends over in their
Halloween costumes and then they’d all go trick-or-treating together (after
she’d opened her presents, naturally; the other parents were quite happy to let
Ross and Honey take over that chore).
But,
I digress. The really, really good part of birthdays was the table at breakfast
time. There was always a huge mountain of birthday (Dudley Dursley, yours was nothing compared to the McDonalds’) presents
piled in front of their place. And a good part of the presents on the table on
October 16 were BOOKS!
Melody
loves books, and even then she considered them to be friends. The worst
punishment that could be inflicted on her would be to sit on her bed without a
book to read.
It was also the worst punishment for her parents, because they
never knew what other things Melody would dream up during those book-free
hours. It was especially terrifying the year she had that chemistry set…
Melody
had a growing set of The Happy Hollisters by Jerry West, the Nancy Drew books,
The Hardy Boys and the Dana Girls. There was a special Christmas book that had
been Honey’s (her mother) and several others of Honey’s childhood books,
including the Bobbsey Twins and several books about girls living in foreign
countries, like Yumi San of Japan.
Her Gram gave her a book published in 1850 about Harold, the Last of the Saxon
Kings, which she had won as a child in an essay competition.
One
year Melody received three classics for her birthday, Gulliver’s travels; Alice in Wonderland; and The Jungle Book. They were wonderful, but Melody had one book that
she loved with all her heart: The Giant
Golden Book of Natural History.
Unfortunately,
an upheaval in the McDonald household caused the loss of all of the books
Melody had received. New books began to pile up, including continuations of
Nancy Drew and the Happy Hollisters. Melody still mourned the loss of her Giant
Golden Book of Nature, but her Grandma Mary found something that brought a
certain amount of relief: the Life-Time Natural History series. Those books
brightened Melody’s spirits, with a new book every morning.
By
the time Melody reached high school, she discovered the Salvation Army and
Goodwill. Her rummaging brought to light a 1918 copy of Tarzan and the Jewels
of Opar and an 1892 English version of Pinocchio, as well as a brand new
version of Peter Pan without a publishing date. She also bought the entire
James Bond series in paperback version. And can we EVER forget the Hobbit and
the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, bought at the Tic Toc store around the corner?
A
couple of those books are in Italy, but the others? Who knows?
Melody now has a huge bookshelf stacked with books; she also has a floor and chairs stacked with books... A tee-shirt she likes to wear says it all: So many books to read, and so little time.
Do
you have a favorite book or series of books? Do you still have any that
thrilled you as a child?
Copyright © April 2, 2016 by Mary Purpari. All Rights
Reserved
What a great post! I love, love every one of the books you mentioned and have recently been thinking about replacing my own collection after a fire in our house when I was 14 destroyed all of my books. It was more heartbreaking than loosing everything else I lost.
ReplyDeleteI started rebuilding mine when I returned to the United States by buying Nancy Drew books as background for my Old McDonald had a Funny Farm series. When the upheaval in our family happened, every single book (And also my set of the Entire Works of Beethoven) were tossed. A few of my horses got through it, but my beloved stuffed horses, Rowdy and Dusty, and my stuffed sea turtle, Sea Boy, were included in the purge. And I DO know how you felt; I felt the same way.
DeleteThank you for dropping by.
Please leave a link so I can exchange the visit.
So many favorites as a child...I think the one that sparked my imagination the most was The Phantom Tollbooth, though. It showed me how you can escape completely into a fictional world.
ReplyDeleteBooks are the best choice for B. :) It's fun to see what other people are writing about for the A to Z Challenge.
I LOVE the Phantom Tollbooth. I bought the book when I was 15 or 16. I THINK I have a copy, but then again, maybe not. And yes, B is for Books is the best, for what is better than books?
DeleteThank you for dropping in. If you come again, please leave your link. After 3 years of writing, I still can't figure out how to facilitate that. :3 Sorry.
Everyone in my family loves to read and my parents own the only new/used bookstore in their town. When I realized my teenage daughter was no longer responding to groundings and I needed a new way to correct her behavior I decided to make her come home after school and read self-help books and books on spirituality. She loved them, or course.
ReplyDeleteBooks are wonderful windows onto the world. Of course, I forgot to mention all the Black Stallion books by Walter Farley. I read so many books and of course, they are never enough, nor is there enough time to read them all. Everyone in our family are all big readers.
DeletePunish them with something they like... Yeah, that might work. Doing without also works. It especially worked out in my favor. We were lucky the house was still standing when the chemistry experiment didn't work out quite the way I expected... Have you gotten your blog back up? If you do, please leave the others and me a link. §(°_°)§
Like Melody, I grew up surrounded by books and thankfully married a man who loves them too. Our books are our prized possession.
ReplyDeleteCorinne, you are SOOOOOO lucky! My ex-husband hated for me to read. I had my providers--my grandmother, my mother and one of my sisters. One evening I was eating and reading a book. My daughter asked me why and I told the two of them that it was just like them not being able to eat without a piece of bread in their hand. They looked at each other and started laughing. but that's the way it was--reading is as important to me as eating.
DeleteThank you for dropping by. Please leave your link for me so I can visit you, too. §(°_°)§
Books have been my friends since childhood too and my house is full of them. ☺ We have some childhood reading material in common, Mary, namely The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I read all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels between the ages of 10 and 13, as well as all of Agatha Christie's. Reading books has taken a back seat since I got hooked on the computer, but there's something comforting about having them, nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteOh my! I forgot about Agatha Christie! I loved her so much I cried when she died. I even got Sonia hooked on her. I have found two ways to read when not on the computer... Well, one IS when I'm on the computer: I translate books. And I must admit, I have read some pretty good books that way! The other is to just read wherever I am when I'm not on the computer. I read when I eat, when I take a bath, when I'm on the bus or train; I've even caught myself reading in my dreams a few times. As Justin said, "Isn't life strange?"
DeleteThanks for dropping in. I'll pop in on you a little later--not too much later, though.☺
Well, I do read stuff on the computer. LOL Mostly articles, though. Agatha Christie was a great writer, wasn't she?
DeleteShe was one of the greatest. I loved her books and would sit savoring them until I had read the last word. Ahhh.
Delete