A week to make you crawl into your childhood.

| TravellinPenguin

This has been a week to really lay a person flat. I have hit a new low in enthusiasm for the things that govern our world. As I don’t really want politics to enter my blogging world (of books, tea and coffee, puppies and flowers, stationary and friends) I will not say how disturbed I am about the recent events in the USA. Most of you know how it feels anyway.

Although I now live in Australia, I grew up in a small town (pop. 5000 maybe) in the state of Michigan in the USA. Farm country midwest.

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The Grand Ledge Public Library, Michigan, USA 1950’s

I was remembering what I used to do as a child when the life I had got to be too much. I used to escape the yelling, the boredom, the alcohol fuelled nonsense by going to the little library that was in my town. It was only one block away. This was in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The librarians were the stereotypical ones who wore their glasses like a bat might, flying out of a cave looking for food. They only knew one word and that was “Shush!”. They used it often. They never showed us anything about where the books were.  When one had read everything in the children’s section it would not occur to them that some in the adult section would be great for the older, intelligent child. 

Censorship was rife in those days. It was okay to read Grimm’s with children being eaten by witches or wolves blowing down houses of pigs into oblivion but heaven help you if there was something good by Steinbeck or Hemingway about poverty,  love, war or angst. Violence was fine, romance wasn’t. We might stumble across the word ‘breast’ or ‘illegitimate’ or ‘queer’ and ask them what it meant. I still laugh to think of it.

Anyway, I digress. I just acquired the book, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. It begins with a section of recommended books from ‘0-3’ age range and it ends with a section for ‘Over 12’. 

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Most of what I remember of life in the library as a child was it was cool in summer. It was quiet and no one bothered you. I spent a lot of time looking through those 3D cards in the little gizmo you hold with your hand and look through at the double postcard to see history in 3D. (I know they have a name but I admit I don’t know what they were called). I guess it was early technology. I know you could sit in a corner on the carpet and read for a long time and no one knew where you were or ever thought to look for you there. But if you got into trouble for being gone so long you had a witness to your afternoon of silence. The bats.

I have wanted a complete week of silence this week. Just to mull over what a Trump presidency will be like with Newt Gingrich in the Secretary of State position and a possible Sarah Palin as head of Interior Development. I can more likely believe in the Yeti or the Abominable Snowman than believe that scenario. Anyway, I digress again. I told you my mind is shot.

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Peanuts Cartoon by Charles Schultz

Since the TV news gives me the shivering willies lately, I have more time to get creative, write in my blog, decorate post cards. I decided as part of 2017, as well as reading more of my TBR books and book club books I will read some of the books listed in the ‘1001 Children’s Books…’

I have read many books for the under five year olds. As I worked with language delayed and disabled children we always had a lot of lessons around books. The Who, Why Where, When and How of language development never left me. I spent 35 years in this field. However, there are many books for older children I was not exposed to. There was no reason, because many of them were written in the late 1800’s and earlier 1900’s except there was no one in my life to tell me about them. My parents weren’t readers of serious things. We chose to not have children so those books were not in the house.

Thumbing through this book brought back happy memories of spending summer days in the library as a child.

It also made me realise that there were a lot of books, especially from other countries I never read. I thought I would start at the beginning of this reference book. The first books are for children 0-3. I will also find the last recommended book listed in the final section ‘Over 12′ year olds’ I am planning to work from the outer edges towards the middle of the book. I will look in our library or the internet and read them. Two books at a time should not take long.  I’ll talk about what I thought of them both and see if they take me out of 2017 .

I think it might be time to travel back to 1959. Anything for a distraction. We’ll see if it helps me cope with 2017 more than I am expecting. After all most of us would probably rather spend time with The Hungry Caterpillar than Trump. 

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14 thoughts on “A week to make you crawl into your childhood.”

  1. I’m reading this on the day that somebody important got sacked from the president’s administration and I’m remembering feeling your pain when the election results were known. But it’s also the day after the French rejected the far right candidate in their election and that’s like seeing the first daffodils of Spring…
    I must get hold of this book… I was a bookish kid who read in a random directionless way, and I grew up to have a bookish kid of my own and eventually to be a children’s teacher-librarian. So children’s books are part of my soul, as much as the grownups books are. I’d recommend A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle as an inspiration for the battle for truth…
    Happy reading!

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    1. I need to pull it out again and read more of the books. These things tend to get waylaid. The pendulum may be starting ro swing back again politically. Might take a couple more years. 🐧🐧🐧

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  2. After this disastrous election season, I’ve found myself thumbing through all my childhood favorite books, digging out my Advent Calendar collection, striking out on long forays in wilderness.

    The only way to survive this for me is to become re-engaged in activism about the causes that I care about that a Trump presidency are sure to neglect. The environment is tops and I have many other charities in my impoverished rural area that can use help (even though nearly everyone here voted for Trump–that’s rural America.)

    I’m still trying to recover and I’ve found it extremely difficult but am moving forward, maybe just a few small steps each day.

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    1. I understand completely. I surround myself with animals and books. I agree about activism around the environment. It is a real worry. We just have to trust that things will be okay and move forward. We do what we can to encourage and help each other. Thanks for dropping by. ☕☕

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  3. Our imaginations are powerful. They can make all those horrible possibilities come to pass — or we can try to imagine something different and make it real. Children’s books for me are about the truth of the imagination, and making it beautiful and good – so it sounds good to focus on that for a while.

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  4. I won’t comment on the politics except to say “I hear you sister”. Oh and to report that I heard today of one distressed American woman say that she wasn’t going to worry about it anymore but just do the best she can to make things better in her community. Can’t say better than that I reckon.

    (Oh this is lovely – I come here, it knows I’m whisperinggums so I just type my message, click notify me and post my comment. Thank you SO much for taking the plunge.

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      1. Oh, that’s really lovely to hear – I’m happy to be seen that way.

        And yes, chances are it won’t be as bad as we think – well, probably not for the middle class. For others – all those “others” whom Trump decries as well as those who believe he’s going to turn things around for them – let’s sure hope so

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  5. wonderful and consoling post… thank you; for a bit of support, try David Brin’s blog, “Contrary Brin”… i’ve admired readers who could benefit from book lists and i like reading them, but i can’t for the life of me stick to following up on one of them; it’ll be very interesting following how you do with it….

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    1. To tell you the truth I have never been good with lists either but this is a fun book to look at so I am sure I will get into it a bit. I will definitely look up the blogs you mention. Thank you.

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  7. I’d like to see this book. Most children’s books are fascinating and fun to read.

    Sent from my iPad

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