Library of Memories: Stories To Remind You
You are 14 and 16 now, and there is no need to keep the picture books on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
Is there need for them at all? I don’t want to answer that question. I don’t want to believe there won’t be a day when, after a time of steeping in the muck that is necessary for blooming into a lily, you come here, sit down, and reach for Dotty, and you remember that imagination is something that will never leave you. Or Brontorina, the ballerina brontosaurus and you consider that dream you let go unspoken and you wonder how it’s doing.
Or what about Pete the Cat? Surely we can’t let him go. He shows us how much color and love and jazz there is to be found in the messiness of life. Fancy Nancy should stay, too. She knows the importance of accessorizing and something tells me she and Pete the Cat will keep each other company.
I think I’ll keep Z is for Moose to remind you of the joy in disorder and friends who help you with your letters. And speaking of friends, let’s go ahead and keep A Sick Day for Amos McGee because sometimes friendship shows up in unexpected and unusual situations.
Where the Wild Things Are will never leave this house. I think you need that story now more than you did when you were 4 and 6. You’re coming in from the wild rumpus later and later these days, and you are so very hungry. I’ll do better keeping your dinner warm (even though I might be in my slippers and PJs by the time you get home).
The wordless Wave will stay, too. I never want you to forget that while I might show you the world, it is your choice to interact with it. At times, you will get knocked down, but there’s treasure to be found in looking around; in standing back up and trying again.
All the board books are gone, except for one: Little Gorilla. Everybody in the jungle loves Little Gorilla, but one day he grows up and he’s BIG.
And everybody celebrates. And everybody still loves him.
I think I’ll keep that one, too.
Try It: Library of Memories Poetry Prompt
This week, go through your bookshelves and consider books that you might’ve outgrown (or maybe you think your children have outgrown them). Find a poem to write about these stories.
Photo by Max and Dee Bernt Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.
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Sandra Heska King says
Oh, my goodness. The children’s books. So many of them. So many memories. What I have is still boxed in the garage where they’ve been since we started renovations. And some I had given to my daughter (now 38) when we moved after having read them to my two oldest grands as well. The last I knew, the almost-13-year-old was the family librarian. I may have to drive back to Michigan and retrieve them.
We often threaten to send Sophie to Madame de Poochio’s School for Dogs (The Housekeeper’s Dog), and there are all the Dr. Seuss books and Goodnight Moon and Rabbit’s New Rug and Where the Wild Things Are, and Golly Gump (I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but Golly Gump swallowed the fly) and and… Henry’s Awful Mistake where he destroyed his house trying to kill a spider, and Are You My Mother, and and and…
Callie Feyen says
Yes, yes. So many great stories I cannot give up yet. I get that, “and, and” you write. 🙂