Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Old Books

I have always had a passion for reading. When I was a child, I would frequently leave the room in the middle of a television program to finish reading a book. While I am not always that disciplined as an adult, I am still pretty much always in the process of reading a book. My eldest daughter seems to have inherited my love of books. Tonight, while we were unpacking from our short vacation, she happened to spy some old books propped up on the bookshelf in the room downstairs where our luggage is stored. She asked me if any of the books were for children. I had forgotten all about those old books, a couple of which I had read multiple times as a child. They were books from the childhoods of both of my parents and my grandmother. As we went through the volumes I started to remember reading those old books, my favorite two were "The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May" (1924) and "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch"(1901). On the first page of Mrs. Wiggs was a note written to me from my grandmother telling me about how she and her sisters had read this book, then my mom, and she hoped that I would enjoy it in turn. Flipping quickly through both of these volumes I could see that they are quite politically incorrect by today's standards, I am sure that my daughter and I will be discussing the differences between early last century and early this century. Meanwhile, I am pleased that she wants to continue the tradition

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