Isn’t there some children’s book about a very bad day? I should go look up that title. Perhaps I should have looked it up before writing this or I could edit this after I go look up the title but I won’t.
(typing into search bar ‘children’s book with very bad day in the title’ – and the answer is…)
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. I never read it. It was published in 1972, I was 26 in 1972, so a bit old for a children’s book.
I don’t remember any specifically children’s books from my early childhood – the only picture book I remember was a version of the Wizard of Oz. Makes me wonder what I was reading as a three or four or five years old – because I was reading by the time I was 3 and I got my first library card when I was 4. The only criteria for getting a library card was being able to write your name. (And I am always surprised to remember that my mother, a major non-reader, actually took me to a library to get a card and probably took me there on a regular basis to get books.)
When I was 10 /11-ish my father signed me up for the children’s book-of-the-month club but that didn’t last long. They sent books that were supposed to be reading level age appropriate but my reading skills were quite advanced and my father deemed the books insulting to my intelligence! He sent them a letter cancelling the subscription and the reason why. Thanks, Dad. (Really – thanks. Heaven forfend anyone would insult my father’s daughter’s intelligence!)
I still have two books from that time – The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Sibley Lampman and Garden Under the Sea by George Selden. I also remember a biography of Mark Twain which I kept a long time but somehow it’s gone missing. I had already read a bit of Mark Twain so I remember being happy to get that book. Tho I do remember it as being a bit simple.
There are times when I am tempted to read those old books yet never do. I expect they will stay on the shelf until I die. But it would be interesting to try and figure out why I’ve kept them – out of all the books I’ve accumulated since childhood.
I’ve been dumping books like crazy for the past 3 or 4 years – I expect the next time I move (if not before) I will dump some more and while for years I carted around 50-60 boxes of books I could probably winnow it down to maybe 6? (Standard moving book box is 12x12x12).
Subject to Change Without Notice 