I was a lucky child because I learned to read young (about 4) and it came easily to me. My sister, three years older, had learned to read, and my parents are both readers, and I could not stand it that they got to read and I didn’t. So I got hooked on the magic of reading (and libraries) at an early age, before school. In retrospect I was also fortunate that my family didn’t have a TV until I was maybe 10 years old. I know, hard to imagine; so don’t draft me for one of those trivia games about TV shows in the early sixties. Some of the books that captivated me as a child:
Treasure Island
The Wizard of Oz
The Wind in the Willows
the Dr. Seuss books
The Secret Garden
The Little House On the Prairie series
Anne of Green Gables
Black Beauty
White Fang
Lad, A Dog
Born Free
Tarzan
Kipling’s Just So Stories
Nancy Drew mysteries
fairy tales from all over the world
Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, the Booth Tarkington books
I’ll stop with this selection, which of course is a bit heavy on the animal-themed side, and rather old-fashioned.
It’s a bit of a cliché to say so, but staring into a screen, playing video games or reading graphic novels just doesn’t exercise the imagination (at least for me) like good old immersion in a book. Just as when I was a child, does it get any better than a sunny day, a new book and a few cookies? Oh, and add a beloved animal.
freshmoonpie 