What is one of your favourite children’s books?
Books are what got me through long sleepless nights as a child. I had almost all the L. Frank Baum Oz books and if I had a nightmare, or couldn’t find my way into dreams I would grab the flashlight my godmother had gifted me and bring the covers up around my head like a tent, and I would travel to strange worlds by way of words.
Perhaps, oddly, Rinkitink in Oz was my favourite of the bunch. Strangely it is hardly related to Oz at all, but the story of a young boy whose island is invaded and all his family and all the folks on the island are taken away. The only people left on the island are him, Rinkitink a visiting king with a penchant for chortling and a curmudgeonly talking goat. And all they really have to save the people of the island are a set of magic pearls that help with truth, and strength. And he stores the pearls in his shoes.
Looking back the Oz stories were so very strange, but there was a comfort in that no one ever died, and things were always set right by the end of the story. Comforting adventures. And I loved the note that Baum wrote to the readers, tucked at the front of the books. Like a message from the early 1900s sent in a time capsule to me, his future reader.
I loved the idea that I could be reading all those years later something that a child like me would have read, clandestinely by candlelight. Thank books connect us beyond time, space, and geography.
I loved so very many books as a child, and I’d love to hear what you read, and what stuck around in your heart.
I ended up reading these to my kiddos. And my eldest received an Oz book for each tooth he lost as a young child. His tooth fairy knew he preferred books over money. And he and his tooth fairy would write back and forth. When he stopped losing teeth he would send letters to the tooth fairy when his younger brother lost his teeth.
I love the magic of imagination. My children loved it too. And let me go on much longer with our fantastical friends than most kids probably would have. And for that I’m grateful. That the magic I made for them, was also magic for me.
I hope you have a magical Saturday.
Heart,
Wake
🥲
As a very young kid, I would love reading any Seuss book, The Bernstein Bears, and the usual kids book around in the early 80's. Somewhere around the 4th grade, I read a book called The Westing Game that I remember being very interested in. Also the Bunnicula series, Scary Stories to tell in the Dark and all of my dads comic books.