Reconnecting with Childhood Favorites

I’ve always been an avid reader. When I was a child, I’d trek to the library every Saturday and come home with an armload of books. Our next door neighbor was the children’s librarian, so I would always stop by to say hello and find out what she was recommending that week. Many of the books I read in those days are still among my all-time favorites.

I read the Anne of Green Gables books when I was ten, and since then I’ve reread them more times than I can count. I also have the two made-for-TV mini series on VHS. Every couple of years I have an "Anne" day and I’ll watch all eight hours. Just me, a big bowl of popcorn, and my box of Kleenex.

Little Women was another favorite, and I also love the movie version with Susan Sarandon and Winona Rider. As a child, I think I related to both Anne and Jo because they a little on the tomboyish side and their imagination was always getting them into scrapes. Although I never died my hair green!

I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. I even read them to my children, and my daughter named one of her dolls Charlotte, just like Laura's.

The Swiss Family Robinson was completely captivating, especially the ingenious things they did to make a home on that island. Part of me has always wanted to live in a treehouse!

One of my neighbor’s recommendations was Loretta Mason Potts—which, in spite of the title, is the story about a little boy who finds out he has an older sister. Loretta, his sister, had been living with another family. After she returns home, she discovers a passageway in her closet that connects her to a secret world. This book was written in 1958 by Mary Chase, who is most famous for her Pulitzer-prize-winning play, Harvey, about a man and his six-foot-tall invisible rabbit.

Over the years I searched secondhand bookstores and then online for a copy of this book, but with no luck. My problem was that I didn’t have the title quite right. I remembered it as Laura Mason Potts. A couple of years ago I googled "Laura Mason Potts," and to my surprise, it turned up in a review on Amazon. The review had been written by another person who had remembered the wrong title.

The book was reissued in 1989, so I immediately ordered a copy. After searching for so many years, there was always the dangers that the book wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but I’m happy to say it did. The day the package arrived, I tore it open, put everything aside, and read the book cover to cover. I'd forgotten that the book is illustrated, but once I had it in my hands, even the black-and-white illustrations were familiar to me.

Maybe that sense of familiarity is what’s so important about these books. Knowing that no matter what else is going on in our adult lives, a favorite story can transport us to our childhood, and to simpler times.

I'd love to hear about everyone's favorite childhood books.

Happy reading!

Lee
www.leemckenzie.com
thewritersideoflife.blogspot.com