A couple nights ago I had a dream about "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." I think it was inspired by our trip to Smiths a day or two before when we walked down the DVD aisle and saw titles we haven't previously seen. I saw a DVD of Beverly Cleary's "Ramona and Beezus" on the shelf. I used to LOVE the Ramona books (although mine didn't have such a fancy, colorful, cover). These DVD's got me thinking about all the books I used to love as a kid. I have always been a reader. When my siblings and I were little, my parents had a pretty genius system. They would send us to bed early, and we were welcome to stay up for an hour if we wanted, as long as we were in our beds reading. So we spent pretty much every night reading to ourselves or each other for an hour or so. I used to love "The Littles," the "Mirette on the High Wire," a little chapter book about a troll that lived in a little girl's closet, "The Little Prince," Strega Nona's Magic Lessons," "All Tutu's Should be Pink," "The Trouble with Trolls," "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble," "Harold and the Purple Crayon," "Amelia Bedelia," the "Junie B. Jones" series, "Miss Piggle Wiggle," and "Seven Blind Mice."
I had Miss A. for second grade. She was everyone's favorite teacher. She would have been mine but she thought I was adopted for the first four months of school (Doug may or may not have convinced her of that fact when he had her two years earlier). I remember second grade as the year I really got into writing. Everything was about writing. I used to draw pictures of myself as an author. I'd write reports about being a writer. I kept a notebook where I'd write songs, stories, and poem (I still have it!!!), and I'd illustrate my notebook with stickers and things that I found wherever. My first story ever was "The Mouse in the Music Room" about a mouse that snuck into the music room and hid in a tuba. I would derive a moral for my stories and state it at the end of the story. Miss A would let me read my stuff out loud during reading time. One day I wrote a poem called, "The Queen Lives Next Door." It was all about the chores the Queen would make me do for her. I remember one line was, "The Queen lives next door, she even makes me clean her floors!" A girl in my class named Angela Mckenzie came to class the next day and asked Miss A. if she could read her new poem out loud to the class: "The Princess lives down the street." Recalling this memory, I'm realizing that there's no way I can name a child Angela... or McKenzie.
I'm rambling (as I am wont to do at 6:00am). It feels good to ramble. This post is about reading, not writing. We used to have Read-A-Thons in Miss A.'s class. I LOVED this concept. (I even hosted the occasional Read-A-Thon in college to bring back this genius concept. As a babysitter, the Read-A-Thon was one of my favorite activities.) We would come to school wearing pajamas, curl up in a quilt, and read the book or books of our choosing. I remember one time in 2nd grade I came to our Read-A-Thon with a stack a foot high of books to read. I zoomed through those books. I was really into "Nancy Drew" (my mom's old hardback version), "Sara Plain and Tall," the "Pee Wee Scouts" (they all have these new fancy covers!), "The Saddle Club," the "Giver," anything by Madeline L'Engle (especially "A Wrinkle in Time" and "Troubling a Star"), "The Witches," "Boy," "Happy Little Family," and so many others.
I remember in 4th grade I had a teacher named Mrs. Larsen. We had the same birthday, and she was my favorite teacher in elementary school. She wouldn't just give me an A. She would give me an A+++++++++++ Maybe she was giving me a false sense of security and confidence as a ten year old, but she also motivated me that no matter how many pluses I had after my A, I could always get more!
Anyway, my favorite time was reading time. On my report card home, I would have all kinds of positive feedback with one "complaint." That complaint: that I laugh during reading time. We'd get together for reading time, and I would just bust out in laughter every other paragraph. She would like of laugh through her teeth as she'd try to scold me for disrupting everybody's reading experience. I know that she mostly thought it was funny that I just couldn't control my giggles (ever since I was a kid I've been a good giggler). My big obsession of this time in my life: "Wayside School is Falling Down" and "Sideways Stories from Wayside School." I thought it was hilarious. I found this book at my mom's house the other day, brought it home, and read a chapter to Scott for fun. We read the chapter about Sammy, the new kid who came to school wearing a hundred smelly overcoats. The teacher made him take off each coat after coat after coat but each coat smelled worse than the first. By the end of the coat-strip, there was nothing left of Sammy but a dead rat. "Dead rats were always trying to sneak into Miss Jewel's classroom." That was the 3rd one they caught that week, or something. I loved silly, unreasonable books. I loved the Lemony Snicket series. I thought it was so clever (I kind of wish I came up with it). "He was so tired, he found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over." Totally threw me for a loop.
As I prepared for my mission, packing up my old bedroom, one of the most emotional experiences was packing my old books into boxes. They're still there... in boxes... along with thirty-something journals filled with all the thoughts and experiences that I'd probably be embarrassed to remember! Part of the fun in starting a family will be sharing these books with my kids. I was at my mom's house a few nights ago, looking through her collection of beautiful old books. I loved seeing the old books. There's nothing quite like old books. I have a few from my Grandma Pete and my Grandma Joan: "Little Women," "Jo's Boys," "Silas Marner," "Tom Sawyer."
There are a few books I read in elementary school that have scarred me along the way, and there are a few books that didn't exactly make my favorites list. But I love books. And I'm so glad I had a dream about "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." I used to read that every year at Christmas time. I love to think back to the books I used to love. I can't wait to open that box of books someday. It'll be like a time capsule of all the best memories.
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