Bookmarks

Megan at Make it Snappy has a book meme today's posting that I may get around to. In meantime, it inspired me to think about books and why I am such an addict. Mike says that the pile of books scattered under my bed, in my bedside table, the kitchen counter and so on isn't how he knows I am a true addict. It's my horrible tendency to read in the shower. Really it isn't that hard (though I admit, I won't take any of the books I really love into the shower.)

We all have milestones in our lives and we all remember them in different ways. For me, if my brain could be looked at as a journal or a filing cabinet, the books I've read at important points in my life would be the little post-it flags that stick out of the pages. Reading a certain book, picking it up and flipping through the pages, or even seeing the title on someone else's blog takes me immediately back to someplace in my history.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Bettie Smith- My mother recommended this book to me. No matter how old I get, when I open A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I am a kid again reading a book my mother loved when she was a girl and understanding her better for it.

Dick and Jane Books - My Nanie (Great Aunt) used to live in a cottage on Houghton Lake in Michigan. She is an ex-teacher who taught in a deaf school and she is still one of the sharpest wits I know. My sister and I spent our summers practically living at her cottage with our parents coming in and out as time allowed. She has always been tough but fair. She didn't put up with nonsense, but on the other hand knew just how to let us spread our wings when we needed it.

Anyway, she had a stash of old kids books that used to belong to my dad and his cousins (imagine my horror to discover that she was his Nanie first!) I loved to read them over and over. The illustrations were so different and the stories were too. I am sure that the cottage is one of the reasons I love old books. I still feel a bit of a thrill looking into books that belonged to someone else in a different era. Not only is it a glimpse into a different time but it also takes me back to carefree summers, the smell of the water, and days when looking through these old books was a serious business - uncovering mysteries and discovering glimpses into the world my parents grew up in.