When I was little, we had a lot of kids books that had my mom's name written in her perfect handwriting. Even in Liberia we had them, rows of books that had been hers before we existed.
It was because she had been a teacher, mostly, but somehow seemed like she just owned the magical world of books. I never thought to wonder why she had them. It was always just a fact: Mom has lots and lots of books.
For Christmas this year, I asked for the collectors editions of the Little House on the Prairie books, and today the last one arrived in the mail. ("We had a terrible time getting the right ones," my parents told me on Christmas morning. "We kept getting the same ones over and over in the wrong edition.")
But the whole set has arrived, now, and I am going to write my name in them, and Christmas 2011, and from Dad. And then I will line them in a row on the shelf, to read myself and to wait for the day when I can read them to my own kids, and they can wonder at my signature in each of them, like I did my mom's.
It was because she had been a teacher, mostly, but somehow seemed like she just owned the magical world of books. I never thought to wonder why she had them. It was always just a fact: Mom has lots and lots of books.
For Christmas this year, I asked for the collectors editions of the Little House on the Prairie books, and today the last one arrived in the mail. ("We had a terrible time getting the right ones," my parents told me on Christmas morning. "We kept getting the same ones over and over in the wrong edition.")
But the whole set has arrived, now, and I am going to write my name in them, and Christmas 2011, and from Dad. And then I will line them in a row on the shelf, to read myself and to wait for the day when I can read them to my own kids, and they can wonder at my signature in each of them, like I did my mom's.
1 comment:
that's a fun thing to look forward to: introducing your kids to books that were awesome when you were little.
Post a Comment