James Reasoner's post last week about his first favorite book threw me into a veritable frenzy of nostalgia, so naturally I had to have a look at my first favorite book. There's a lot of it left, although the covers are missing. The cheap paper is crumbling and chipping, and quite a few of the pages are gone. Some of the remaining pages are decorated with crayon art by anonymous artists, probably me or my sister or brother. What matters though is that I still have what's left of it. The first page of the remainder of the book is one of the concluding pages of what I'm sure was my favorite poem in the book, "Who Killed Cock Robin?" Even as a little tyke, I was a crime fiction fan.
As you can see, at some point in the book's history my other wrote an little inscription on it. She told me that the book was a present for my first birthday. She also said that I was a huge fan of the rhymes that the book is filled with (it's well over 300 pages long). She told me that when my father came home from work in the afternoons, I'd grab up the book and toddle to him as fast as I could, saying "'ead Mama Goose. 'ead Mama Goose." Is it any wonder that I wound up as I did? I wouldn't have it any other way.
9 comments:
Great stories about favorite books by you and James! My first favorite book was TOM SWIFT AND THE CAVES OF NUCLEAR FIRE.
Walt Kelley did a wonderful take on this too!
Hard to argue with that choice.
I more remember first records, like "Shrimp Boats," and "Eh, Cumpari" by Julius Larosa. I can still sing all the verses of that one.
Jeff
Those are great songs.
From the geezer bus: Eh Cumpari.
And keep off my lawn!
Jeff
You have to smile listening to that one.
The first book I ever read was a bit heavy. "Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal" by Lloyd C. Douglas. I was fascinated by the idea of story telling after reading it. Later, a friend of the family brought me a box of classics: Tom Sawyer, Heidi, Call of The Wild, White Fang, and others. I was in Heaven. Books were then my life.
While I remember loving MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL as a tyke, the books I recall most fondly (I think I have said this before) are the two books by A.A. Milne, illustrated by E.H. Shepard:
WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG and NOW WE ARE SIX. I am on my third set, along with the two Winnie-the-Pooh books, as the others wore out. I can still recite some of the poetry in them, and love looking at them still.
I finally got around to Milne originals when I was about 9, but I was still charmed, Rick. I might be one of the few people you know who was reading Poe, Lovecraft, Bloch and Joe Gores before he read the pure quill Pooh.
Meanwhile, at four I was thrilled with the edition of GRIMM'S I finally located again, along with some Seuss and Golden Books...
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