Monday, October 6, 2008

Treasures from Childhood: Books- Part 1

As I’ve said before in other posts, I’m a big kid. What that means is I get the best of both worlds being an adult and buying new stuff to add to my collection while still hanging on to my childhood. Like a lot of kids (those that enjoyed reading anyway), my favorite books as a kid would eventually be given away just like my toys as I outgrew them. For example, almost all my picture books like Dr. Seuss, etc. were given to my little brother once I was deemed “too old” for them. However, I hung on to some of them!

Title: JENNIFER’S BOOK
Author: Anne Rothman and Kenneth Hicks
Illustrator: Lynn Adams
Published: 1984 (two years before I was born)
Publisher: Banbury Books, Inc.

Hearing a story about Jennifer’s may bore some of you to tears, but to a Jennifer like me it was endlessly fascinating! There’s the meaning of the word, stories about famous people with that name (Guinevere, Saint Genevieve, Jenny Lind, Jennifer Jones, Jennie Churchill, and even a plane for example), and poems about Jennifer’s too. Like this one:



Another set of childhood “picture” books that I loved were the Walt Disney productions books:
They all use the original Disney movies as inspiration for the pictures and the story (to some extent) and the oldest one is from 1960 but most were published in the late 70s/ early 80s. All are well loved either by me or their previous owner but only two or three actually have torn pages. None are missing though! I just wish I knew who had written them and illustrated them.

These three are the ones that mean the most to me. Not that I wouldn’t cry if I lost any of the others but my grandmother owned an antique/ flower shop when I was a kid (I spent a lot of time around antiques from a very early age, I don‘t remember ever breaking anything though!) and about a year or two before she died, she gave me these:

Title: Who Lives on the Farm?
Author: Mary Elting
Illustrator: Pauline Jackson
Published: 1949
Publisher: Wonder Books, Inc.


Title: Wheels and Noises
Author: Mary Elting
Illustrator: Elizabeth Dauber
Published: 1950
Publisher: Wonder Books, Inc.



Title: Jumper Santa’s Little Reindeer
Author: Terry Shannon
Illustrator: Charles Payzant
Published: 1952
Publisher: Avon Publishing Co.- Jolly Books

Someone truly loved these before they came into my possession. Maybe my grandmother, I never did think to ask, but I’m almost afraid to handle them because the pages are so loose and the spines have already been taped before (I don’t think I did it but I might have)

Now there are many more I wish I still had but I’m happy that I can go back and have these at least. Coming soon: Chapter Books.

7 comments:

  1. wow.. great old books! you must be reincarnated to have such a love for old movies and books!!

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  2. LOL! I am a lover of old books. :)

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  3. Deslily: I guess I must be. I truly adore old books (which is part of the reason for my personal Disney movie into book goal) and movies. Oh got an old movie post coming soon!

    J. Kaye: Even if I don't particularly care for the smell of an old book (I LOVE new book smell though), I love to read and re-read them.

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  4. Such wonderful treasures! Most of my childhood books ended up being given away too, although I still have a number of them tucked away in my closet. You've got me wanting to dig them out and go through them again. :-)

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  5. I love old books too, you gave me an idea for an upcoming post, I've got some old books lying around in my book shelf myself :)
    http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/

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  6. Ooooh... what a precious collection, Jen! The old books looked lovely! :D

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  7. Wow, what a great collection of books, Jen! After reading this, I wish I'd kept some of the old books then instead of giving them away!

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