Mar. 28: Plinky ~ Nostalgic reading

There was no way I could resist today’s Plinky prompt:

Name a children's book that makes you nostalgic.

In my memory of childhood, books play a huge part. I learned to read young—thanks to a big sister with lots of patience—and remember frequent trips to Kathy’s school library before I was actually a student. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, the Berenstain Bears, Amelia Bedelia, and Dr. Seuss books were favorites. As an early reader I also loved anything by Syd Hoff, Richard Scarry, Beverly Cleary, and Maurice Sendak. There’s no one book that stands out as THE nostalgic favorite, but there were two books that immediately popped into my head when I read the Plinky prompt.

Richard Scarry’s Great Big Mystery Book

This book had two mysteries in it, but I remember very little about the second one—something about pies. The first, The Supermarket Mystery, was about a thief who cleverly stole groceries right out in the open. I remember solving the mystery long before the pig detective did, and after the first time through, I always read it with kind of an attitude because HOW COULD HE NOT SEE WHO THE CULPRIT WAS?

One of the things I loved best about Richard Scarry’s books was all the detail in his illustrations, and although this book had more of a story to it than other Scarry books I had, there was still so much to see on every page.

I spent a lot of time with Richard Scarry books. Another favorite was What Do People Do All Day? Who couldn’t love Huckle and Lowly Worm? I was not a big fan of Bananas Gorilla, though—my anti-monkey-ness started before I could even identify it.

A Bargain for Frances, by Russell and Lillian Hoban

A Bargain for Frances has changed over the years and now comes in different levels of “I Can Read” books, but after an extensive Google image search I found a photo of the version I actually had.

There were several things that fascinated me about this book. One was that Frances appeared to be a badger and even as a beginning reader, I knew that badgers are assholes. Interesting choice for a whole series of sweet little critter books, huh? Something else I loved about the story was Frances’ tea set, which she and her friends played with often. I had tea sets when I was little, but I don’t remember them being a big deal with me and my friends—possibly because my best friend was a boy. I was a girly-girl, no denying that, but just never got into that whole tea set thing. This book made me want to. Lastly, the whole idea of one friend cheating another on a trade was a lesson that was not lost on me. Even in my young innocence I could detect asshole-ish behavior (…so maybe making Frances a badger wasn’t such a bad decision).

Frances appeared in a series of books but this is the one I remember owning and really, really loving. I bought it for Katie when she started showing an interest in books, but she’s never cared too much about it.

There are lots of children’s books that make me nostalgic, and I love that my kids are reading some of my favorites now. Thanks to them, I’m also enjoying the discovery of a lot of new writers that are very well on their way to being authors of new classics.

Cuz books pretty much rock.