Books

My mom sent me a text the other day, in the wee hours of the morning.  It was Dr Seuss' A Great Day for Up:
"Up Up Up
The sun is getting up
so Up with you
Up ear number one, ear number two"
I remember that from my childhood. It got me to thinking of all the books I read, or had read to me, when I was little. Some I loved.  Some I hate to this day.

A Fish Out of Water  I hated that book.  It's about a kid who feeds his fish too much and the fish just grows and grows and grows.  The fish gets to be the size of a house, or something ridiculous like that. 

Icarus We read the story of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun.  He made wings out of feathers and wax.  His father warned him to not fly too close to the sun or it would melt the wax and he'd fall.  So, natch, Icarus flies too close to the sun, his wings melt and he plummets into the Aegean Sea.  W...T...F.  What, exactly, was I to learn from this story?  Don't build wings out of chicken feathers?  It's better to use eagle feathers?  Don't fly too close to the sun??  OK, I won't. 

I Know an Old Lady  The absolute worst children's book.  Ever. There will never, not ever, be another book written that I hated as passionately as this one.  "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly.  I don't know why she swallowed a fly.  I guess she'll die."  So then this lady swallows a spider to kill the fly.  Then she has to swallow a bird to kill the spider or some such bool-crap.  By the end---"I know an old lady who swallowed a horse.  She's dead, of course."  Oh my god.  To this day, I remember the picture of the lady after she'd swallowed the horse.  Just a lady with a horse inside her.  It was terrifying.  So the moral is to not swallow a horse?  Consider it done.... 

Some book about a bunny and an egg  I can't remember the title, but I can vividly see the book.  It was a big hardback book.  There was something about a bunny and egg, which looked like a Faberge Egg.  And then the egg rolls down a hill and something comes out of it.  I can't really remember what happens, but I do know I hated it.  It was too busy.  Too many colors.  And I think that jerk bunny kicked the egg down the hill.  I can't remember exactly why, but that book gave me the creeps. 

The problem being, I was a very factual child.  I had no tolerance for the absurd.  I lived in a world of reality.  The bunny/egg story, Icarus, the Old Lady--these are not realistic.  A house sized fish?? A lady that swallows a horse??? Don't even get me started about Icarus.  Even as a little kid I knew that was crap.  And Icarus dies.  And the old lady dies.  How are these children's stories?

I did, however, like:

Good Night, Moon  I thought the story itself was pretty lame, but I loved having to find the grasshopper and the other thing.  Lady bug?  I can't remember.  But I thought that was pretty cool. 

Nate the Great Goes Undercover  I LOVED this book.  Nate the Great is a boy detective and he is trying to figure out who keeps knocking over trash cans at night.  I think.  It's been a long time.  There were two girls that he thought were weird.  One had cats and the other always looked like she was going to yawn.  But the best part, the absolute best part is when he walked into the telephone pole.  I laughed every time.  Without fail. I don't know how many times I read that book and it was always hilarious. 

Nancy Drew When I got to be a little bit older I was all about Nancy Drew.  She was so smart.  I'm smart.  She had blue eyes.  I have blue eyes.  She had strawberry blond hair.  I have strawberry blond hair.  I so wanted to be Nancy Drew.  She had her two BFFs and her little blue convertible.  They're written by a ghost writer, so there have been at least six authors, I think.  For awhile they got a little preachy, but I loved the Nancy Drew books.