Tag: thoughts

7 Books for Grandmother’s to share with their Granddaughters
children's books · Favorite Books · Grandparents · library

7 Books for Grandmother’s to share with their Granddaughters

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7 Books for Grandmothers to share with granddaughtersAs the one year anniversary of my Grandma’s passing creeps slowly closer, I’ve been drawn subconsciously to all things reminiscent of her.  During the months after her passing, I found myself dialing her number on the way home from work to share a funny story or searching in a drawer for the perfect postcard to mail.  Catching myself in these moments hurt deeply and I had to delete her phone number from my contacts using my laptop.  It felt too intimate, too personal somehow to do this on the phone itself.  While these moments have mercifully ceased, the other day, I found myself drawn to a section in the library that held all of the books my Grandma read with me as a little girl.

Flipping through the books, I realized that most of these books shared a common theme of strong independent girls and young women.  In her own way, Grandma was planting the seed in my mind; affirming, cultivating and accepting those traits in me.

Reading together bridged the gap between us throughout the middle school years, giving us something common to discuss during those years which are notoriously difficult and known for moving children away from their grandparents.  Reading books like the Little House on the Prairie series and Blue Willow also opened up a gateway for Grandma to share her own story and those of her parents and grandparents.  These stories fueled my (very unusual for an adolescent) passion for history, Westerns, and ancestry.

I highly recommend these 7 books for Grandmothers to share and read with their Granddaughters.  Most of these books have been adapted into movies, giving Grandmas one more activity to share with their Granddaughters after finishing the book.

  1. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
  2. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
  3. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
  4. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  5. Blue Willow by Doris Gates
  6. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
  7. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Happy Reading!

p.s. These are also wonderful books for Mothers to share with their Daughters!

Book Stores · Old Book Smell · Secret Hideout · Wheat Beer

Researchers declare “Old Book” smell a piece of our cultural heritage

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There was a bookstore in Denver, The Black & Read, that smelled absolutely uh-mazing.  As soon as you’d open the door, you’d be hit with a wave of that musty sweet clean bitter slightly pungent odor that only old books exude.  They sold records and sci-fi memorabilia too, so the smell there seemed to be overly potent.  On rainy days, I liked to pop in there and get lost in the shelves, the book smell lingering in my hair and clothes.  As a kid, I only read books that “smelled good”, re-shelving the antiseptic smelling new books in favor of those with a “good smell”.  This method led to some seriously fantastic reads.  My logic at 8 was that a book with a strong bookish aroma is usually well read, meaning it’s a book worth reading.

Houston has Half Price Books, which occasionally catches the old book scent, but it’s more like catching a hint of a favorite perfume on the wind but not knowing where it came from.  The scent there just can’t match any of those old teeny tiny tucked into a corner bookstores that used to be everywhere.  I love my Kindle, but it was a sad day when bookstores started closing and that smell started disappearing.

Turns out I’m not the only person with an affection for that musty old book smell.   Researchers at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage believe  “old book” is a smell that is part of our cultural heritage.  As part of their research experiment, they asked people to describe the smell of the St Paul’s Cathedral Dean and Chapter library.  100% of the folks surveyed described the library smell as woody.  Another 86% described it as smoky.  71% described it as earthy and amazingly 41% of people described that old book library smell as vanilla!

So now that they know what it smells like, can we get someone to work on making old book scented candles?  I’m serious.

Candle wish lists aside, what causes that old book smell?  Research points to the paper, ink and binding adhesives, which give off an odor during the chemical breakdown of those components.  I prefer my 2nd grade analysis that a particularly aromatic book has a collected a lot of history in its pages and is a worthy good read.

 

Subject: Enjoying that distinct “Old Book” smell

Rating: 5+ stars

Best Paired with: Any of the awesome beers found at the Alien Brew Pub in Albuquerque, NM, particularly the Crop Circle Wheat

Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys
audio books · children's books · Ice-Cream Sundae · Secret Hideout · series books

Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys

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Nancy Drew the secret of the old clock book cover

My son, who we’ll call Huck in this blog, LOVES story time and was very disappointed that Mommy couldn’t read him his favorite books while driving him to school in the morning.  I attempted a few “from memory” recitations, which never quite hit the mark, before remembering my brother and I having several books on tape that we would sit and listen to over and over and over and over again.

On our next library visit, we found the “reading kits” which contain the book for the child to read and the cd for them to listen.  We picked out several and headed home.  The ride home (and all subsequent car rides for the next week) was awesome, until it became apparent we were going to listen to the same 5 min story 15 times for each car ride.

Cue the Nancy Drew audio book in the wrong location.

The bright yellow color caught Huck’s eyes and he had to have the yellow audio book.  We checked it out and were soon absorbed in a world of 1930’s American mystery.  Unlike the children’s books, this book had chapters and it took us about a week to complete.  My kid was obsessed, OBSESSED I tell you, with the mystery and we would have to sit in the car listening until we reached the end of each chapter.

At 3, I wasn’t sure he’d be able to follow such a long complex story, but he really surprised me by not only following the story, but coming up with his own ideas, conclusions and plans for catching the bad guy.  Over the next few months, we moved through the first five of the original Nancy Drew mysteries before moving on to the Hardy Boys.

Both series are very well written.  The characters are well developed and very like-able.  The plot is always intriguing and the mystery ending always attempts to be creative.  I enjoyed the timelessness of Nancy Drew.  Despite the lack of cell phones, which would have ended quite a few of her mysteries before they started, the novels never felt dated  and it was easy to relate to Nancy and her friends.  The length and complexity of the story was just right to satisfy the literary needs of both Huck and me.

Listening to these books took me straight back to third grade and I enjoyed just as much now as I did then, how Nancy, George, and Bess were presented as strong independent young women who held their own in the mystery world.  It was particularly refreshing to “read” about Nancy’s relationships with men.  The local police force, for example, respected her ideas, opinions and appreciated her assistance on cases.  Her father, a successful lawyer, encouraged Nancy to take chances and follow leads, while also backing her up when she needed it.

The Hardy Boys books are well written as well, but at times felt a bit dated, particularly when they mention money.  The Hardy Boys were also still active in their high school social life, leading to a few more characters than Nancy’s trusty sidekicks of George and Bess.  The stories were very very good but longer than the Nancy Drew mysteries and at times a little bit more complex.  While written about high schoolers, the books seem to be written for a little bit older audience that the Nancy Drew books.

Both my husband and I enjoyed listening to these mysteries with our son, and while I have a notorious affection for F-Bombs and complex tales, I enjoyed the fact that all of the language, scenarios and situations in these books were G rated.  These two series are just as good and as satisfying to read as an adult as they were as a child, and I’m rating these as 5 stars and recommending a traditional old ice cream sundae as the choice of drink while reading.

Title: The Nancy Drew Mysteries/ The Hardy Boys Mysteries

Rating: 5 stars

Location best to enjoy: Your secret hideout, a blanket fort, or the crook of a big old tree

Best Paired with: An old fashioned ice cream sundae with the works

Hot Chocolate Reads · Hot Tea Reads · library

Love letter to the library

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Libraries have always been my favorite places.  They’re always cozy, warm, welcoming, and quiet.  You can’t help but feel smarter when you walk into a library.  There’s just something inspiring about those huge wooden book cases packed neatly with rows and rows of books and the quiet calm voices people only use at the library, the smell of old musty paper and the sun shining into the room in big strips.  Entering a library is like coming home after a long walk in the snow.

One of my first vivid childhood memories is a trip to the library.  I was about five years old and excited beyond words by all of the books.  I wanted them all.  After stacking a precarious pile on the counter, the librarian gently explained the ten book limit on children’s checkouts and helped me narrow down my selection.  It was so disappointing, but she did give me my own library card and let me sign the back by myself while explaining I could come back to the library anytime.  That library card became my ticket to freedom and I spent my entire childhood trying to read through the entire library.  In high school, the library become a den of calm and quiet in my overactive adolescence.  I remember seeking out the farthest corner on the top floor, laying on the floor between two giant book cases, positioned like sentinels, as I fell into a world of mystery, romance, religion, and intrigue.  At 17, I designed my first tattoo while seated Indian style on the floor in my favorite row, merging a compilation of designs found in a book on ancient written languages.  In college, the library became a quiet witness to my struggles with certain courses, the late night study sessions and the occasional naps and breakdowns between the pages of textbooks.  The library was the first to know I was in love, the first to know I’d failed an exam, the first time I’d experienced a poetry reading or stopped to really look at a painting as something more than just a pretty picture.

After moving 1200 miles away from home, the library became the first destination I could drive to without referencing handwritten directions.  With my first baby, when I knew nothing and felt deeply terrifyingly alone, the library was there like an old mother hen, welcoming us with the silly songs and stories every week at story hour.  The library, and its endless supply of books, is an old friend in an apron and floured hands, pulling cookies from the oven.

This then, is my love letter to the library and all of the wonderful books within.