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Friday, January 14, 2022

Favourite Childhood Books - Precious Memories

Five Plus Favourite Childhood Books

What were some of your favourite childhood books? This post has some reflections on some of my favourites. Perhaps if you are an old fogey like me, you will recall these books too.
Scripture:
  • Train up a child in the way they should go and they will not soon depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
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Five of My Favourite Childhood Books - Plus One

One of my happiest childhood memories was spending hours in our school library pouring over the seemingly endless shelves of books. It was wonderful to learn how to care for books properly and shelve them. There were many books I thoroughly enjoyed as a child and fondly remember. I started writing this post about five of my favourite books from my childhood and then started remembering a few more.  Do you recall any of these books?

Babar 

I just came across one of the original Babar books here on Abe Rare Books. This is what got me meandering off down this childhood mind track. I enjoyed the Babar books for the unique way they were written. Unlike other books, with a printed typeface, these books were in cursive script! It absolutely fascinated me to find books written in cursive script and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to decipher what was written on the pages. To this day, I have not found any other books written in this unique style.

Maggie Muggins

Technically, these books were my older sister's. She had loved them then passed them on to me. I still had several of these volumes until recently. The Maggie Muggins books were based on an old radio show. What I liked the most about these books is the setting was so much like where I was growing up. There was a pond, woods and garden and I would frequently chat with the animals on our small family farm, much as Maggie talked with the animals in the books. My favourite of the books was that at the end of each day's adventure, Maggie would sing a little song that ended with," I wonder what will happen tomorrow." I think it was reading this so many times in my childhood, that helped instill a bit of resiliency in me, so I would keep focussing forward on tomorrow. I was delighted to discover some Maggie Muggins books here on eBay. Perhaps when you look they will still be there too.

Madeline L'Engle Sci-Fi Books

I wrote a bit about a Madeline L'Engle science-fiction book I enjoyed in this post, comparing it to the movie version of A Wrinkle in Time. Believe me, the book was much better. I think Madeline L'Engle was the first science fiction author I read. I liked how good won out over evil. It was fairly recently that I discovered she was a Christian author!

Girl Guide Handbook

I loved reading my Girl Guide Handbook, as well as my mother's even older version. It was chock full of great knowledge that I still use today. Frankly, I don't know if I could have survived without the knowledge, attitudes and skills I gained through my years in the Girl Guide program. I was a Brownie, Girl Guide, Cadet, and volunteer Leader. It was an excellent program that gave me a lot of life skills. It seems funny seeing a 1977 Girl Guide Handbook listed in Vintage and Rare books here on eBay. This one is even newer than the one I used!

Trixie Belden Mysteries 

My friends and I got hooked on the Trixie Belden Mystery Series in about Grade Four. These hard-cover books were a bit pricey, so we often traded the ones we had read for others in the series. I was surprised to discover on eBay there are hard-cover  Trixie Belden books that pre-date my love for this series! What did we like about these books so much? Well, there was the aspect of a mystery being in each one, then reading about the fictional lives of teenagers from different socio-economic backgrounds all getting along as friends was also reassuring in some ways. These were a bit like Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, but somehow a bit more accessible and cozier.

Arch Books

I wrote a bit about my childhood love of Arch Books a bit previously in this post about Nest Learning.
Image A cartoon drawing showing a baby in a basket in the water and two women standing in the water looking at the baby
Baby Moses - One of the Many Arch Books at Nest Learning

 I think I got my first Arch Book as a prize for attendance when I went to an afterschool program offered by the Presbyterian Church - IAH. It was a wonderful group, but more about that later. 
What I enjoyed about Arch books besides the format - brightly coloured pictures in a glossy paperback cover, was these Bible stories were written in rhyme! Think of these as the Christian version of Dr. Seuss. Despite these only being paperback books, I still had some of these that lasted well over 50 years until recently. Man! When did I get so old?
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I would love to hear about some of your favourite childhood books. Please drop me a note in the comments below before you go!

Thanks for dropping in!
Su.

About This Author

Sister Su is grateful to God for keeping her alive. She is a Trent/Queen's Concurrent Education graduate with over 20 years of teaching experience. She writes on several blogs, has a YouTube channel and is most easily reached through Twitter @Sister_Su See her link tree for more details:@Sister_Su | Linktree

This post was proofread with the free version of Grammarly

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