Wednesday 9 March 2011

Short and bookish

As one of the dork persuasion, I am contractually obligated to love books. My mum read The Lord of the Rings to my sister and I when we were very young. I can only assume that she had an entire universe of lozenges to hand. Perhaps this is why I currently sport an Orc-like hairstyle.  
One moon to rule them all. 
I am chronically short of lozenges, so my daughters are treated to some less hefty evening reads. Here are some our favourites, as per a lovely suggestion from Kate Takes 5 and MummySquared :

  1. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. About the night that Max donned his wolf suit and sailed off into the stubborn wilderness of childhood. A manifesto on how to face down parents and monsters alike with awesome belligerence.  
  2. What Was I Scared Of? by Dr Seuss. A tale of spooky green pants, er trousers, with nobody inside them. Featuring pecks of snide, doubt-trout, and being nice to scary things.
  3. The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson. An apology for snails with an itchy feet, or as per the infinite wisdom of Tanta: the best way to explain wanderlust to the under-fives. 
  4. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. If you can read this bittersweet tale of a tree who loved a boy without weeping, then you need to get new tear ducts installed.
  5. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. The classic American goodnight book. Our copy, gifted by the lovely Auntie S, only retains structural integrity by a duct-tape thread. I consider I Took the Moon For a Walk by Carolyn Curtis to be the imaginative soul-mate of Goodnight Moon - complete with weeping grass, moon-shoes, and ghosts in the belfry.  
There is a pale bearded man who haunts these parts. He might be Santa or Odin, but he is lanky, chain-smokes, and doesn't appear to own a raven. He pilots a vast mobile library around on tiny pot-holey roads; he knows everything about any book under the sun, and hands out Bookstart packs like they are pure, magical gold. I reckon his RV is actually some sort of spaceship from another dimension.   

My favourite grown-up book, Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, features one library, two boys, and a flock of carnival bad guys. Naturally, the boys run to the library when they need to escape from evil. 

Libraries are wonderful places - especially in painfully-quiet neighborhoods like mine. I'm no expert - heck, I'm hardly even awake to be honest - but closing down libraries does seem a bit like binning cats to save on cat food to me. 

12 comments:

  1. Love the look of the last 2 and that picture is a classic!

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  2. I can imagine your mum had tons of patience reading Lord of the Rings. I used to enjoy reading bedtime stories to Amy but she reads them to me now!

    CJ xx

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  3. Congrats on being Blogger of the Week!!

    I'm a UK mum now in the US. One of the things I tried to do with my kids is to find out what the old classic favourite books are here. Goodnight Moon is definitely in that category, and we have loved it.

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  4. Thanks Kate!

    Lucky you Crystal Jigsaw - I can't wait till that happens around here - I'll just sit back and sip a cup of tea while she reads ME a bedtime story.

    Thanks for stopping by Iota - glad to hear you've enjoyed the great American bedtime book as much as we have!
    ~M

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  5. Oh I so love good books. (and the time to hide away and read them). Nicely done :O)

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  6. Oh, We love The snail and the whale, and all Julia Donaldson books!

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  7. Oh you are so readable, and I want to meet your librarian man. Ours just roll their eyes when you ask to borrow the key to the toilet or screw up on the self service checkin/out. the van sounds so much lovelier.
    Where the wild things are, magic, my fave from childhood too.

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  8. All three of my kids love Goodnight Moon. Hell, even I still love it. Finding the mouse in every scence. That's the key.

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  9. Caz - the time to hide away and read them is the real clincher, isn't it :)

    Windmill, I am a huge fan of all things Julia Donaldson too - she is fabulous.

    Penny - thank you - high praise indeed coming from you! Our library man is a true wonder. Perhaps I could send him on inter-library loan to you for a few weeks?

    Carrie, indeed - the mouse is the best part!

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  10. These sound fab and I've added four of the books you mention to our various wishlists. We love the Snail and the Whale (snA-zle a whA-zle as my two-year-old calls it) and you write about them beautifully. I love the photo and caption so much, too - genius.

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  11. Thanks Kirsty - I suspect your book list (and shelf) is already a mile long. The snA-zle a whA-zle is about the cutest thing I've ever heard - that's what I'm calling it from here on out.

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  12. Congrats on being Blogger of the Week!!

    I'm a UK mum now in the US. One of the things I tried to do with my kids is to find out what the old classic favourite books are here. Goodnight Moon is definitely in that category, and we have loved it.

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