Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
My father called me yesterday to tell me that he was going to my grandfather’s house. Since my grandfather died, it has belonged to the whole family, a lake house where guests can come and stay once it’s finished. So, “DANton Ten Six” would have been the title of the entry, anyway, it’s just significant that my dad is in the place where the story-reading took place.
In fact, one year I asked my dad to get a copy of my grandfather reading it, and I’ve had it on DropBox for many years. If you’re familiar with the book, you already know what it is. If you’re not, let me help you out:
In an old house in Paris
All covered with vines
Lived 12 little girls
In two straight lines.
In two straight lines,
they broke their bread.
Brushed their teeth,
and went to bed.
The Ludwig Bemelmens classic, “Madeleine,” runs through my head in my grandfather’s northeast Texas drawl. Even though I do not have a recording, I can still hear my grandmother, the classic Nurse Clavel, reading “call DANton Ten Six- NURSE! It’s an APPENDIX!” Of course a little girl having a medical procedure is going to be interesting to me. I love medical procedures.
I would like to say that I, too, like to tell the tigers at the zoo to “Pooh, Pooh.” I don’t because I’m not as brave as Madeleine. Though thankfully my DC tigers are generally metaphorical.
Picking just this one book isn’t fair, because I don’t talk about that book as much as I talk about Sesame Street. My other two favorite books in childhood were about characters from it. I devoured “The Monster at the End of This Book,” and I had another book about Bert and Ernie doing the weekly shop that was entertaining, I just don’t remember the title. I do remember that Ernie wanted to get “Cheesy Pleasy,” and that sounded good. 😉
But as I have said, themes repeat in my life.
Grover is still an essential part of my story.
Stories That Are All True 