Friday, February 17, 2006

The Children's Book Meme

Can't believe I'm doing two memes in one week, but I really liked them both! I got this one from Jen. I will mention that, while this is called the "children's book" meme, several of my choices probably veer somewhat into the young adult category. But whatever - here we go. Both Jen and the person she got this from opened with one of their favorite literary quotes. Here's one of my favorites:
"Lord! when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book." ~Christopher Morley
Name your 3 favorite children's series. 1. the Trixie Belden books; I still have my battered, well-loved old copies. 2. Madeleine L'Engle's "Wrinkle in Time" and the sequels. I've probably read "A Wrinkle in Time" more times than I've read any other book. 3. the "Princess" books by George MacDonald ("The Princess and the Goblin", "The Princess and Curdie"). I haven't read those stories in years. I wonder if I'd still like them. Name your 3 favorite non-series children's books. 1. the Companion Library book of fairy tales, which has a collection of Andersen's fairy tales on one side, then halfway through you flip it over and it has Grimm's fairy tales on the other side. My brother's kids got our childhood copy so I was THRILLED to find a used copy of the exact same edition in an antique shop a few years ago and bought it for myself. 2. "Freaky Friday" by Mary Rodgers; TooTOO funny. Way funnier than either movie version has managed to be. (Actually this has a sequel, but I choose to pretend the sequel doesn't exist.) 3. "A Walk Out of the World" by Ruth Nichols. I still remember the sense of yearning I felt when I read this: "A rustle passed over the stars, and they twinkled like the fragile ornaments on a Christmas tree or like poplar leaves in a sudden gust of wind. But not the way our stars twinkle, with cold light: they shimmered with blue and violet, gold and green." Name your 3 favorite children's book illustrations. (I added this category because there are some books I love as much for the illustrations as for the stories.) 1. "Bright April", written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli; This is an old book - copyright 1946. I have no idea where it first came from; whether it belonged to one of my parents or maybe it was something they picked up used for us somewhere. But I always liked the story and loved the beautiful illustrations, some of which were black/white drawings and some were paintings like this: 2. "Andrew Henry's Meadow", written and illustrated by Doris Burn. I LOVE the drawings in all Burn's books, but that one is my favorite. Andrew Henry and his friends all felt unappreciated at home so they ran away to a nearby meadow and Andrew Henry built little kid-versions of dream houses for them all. I passionately wanted to live in Alice's treehouse: 3. "Alexander and the Magic Mouse", written by Martha Sanders, illustrated by Philippe Fix. This was a charming story, but mostly I just want to live in this house: Name 3 favorite children's books characters. 1.Trixie Belden!!! Omigawd, I wanted to BE Trixie. I wanted to be a BobWhite of the Glen, and be best friends with Honey, and go steady with Jim, and solve mysteries. Nancy Drew never did much for me. It was Trixie all the way. I spun hours and hours worth of fantasies about the life of Trixie Belden. 2. Meg, in the L'Engle books. Yes, she was awkward and having problems in the first couple, but she was smart and resourceful, stubborn and loyal, loving and fierce, and you just knew she was going to turn out great as an adult. (And she did!) 3. This one's a tie: Jo and Amy from "Little Women". Who didn't want to be Jo?? Smart, funny, fearless Jo - she's the star, and I was certainly no exception to the "I want to be Jo" craze. But once we get past the first half of the book where Amy is nothing but an annoying brat, I had some AmyEnvy happening too. She was pretty, she was an artist, she got chosen by Aunt March to go on the grand tour of Europe, and...hello!...she married Laurie! She got to be pampered and adored for the rest of her life by the smart, sweet, handsome, rich boy next door. Not too shabby! And now to leave you with one final favorite quote about books:
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." ~Groucho Marx
If anyone wants to do this one, feel free to steal it, or let me know and I can tag you "officially". I'd love to read your answers! Oh yeah, and for the daily art thing, I decided to make my rambling Victorian childhood dream house my own through the magic of Photoshop: "A Childhood Dream"