It should come as no surprise that I loved books as a child. They were pretty much all I ever wanted for gifts (to heck with socks and such!) The hard thing to do here is select which books to list, so there may be several back trails to books from my youth. ;-)

My introduction to Dr. Seuss was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I read this book until I had it memorized. (I'm sure my folks loved that)! My favorite was the one about the Wet Pet.

I think purple may be one of my favorite colors because of Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. Harold has a magic crayon ... whatever he draws becomes real and he goes on amazing adventures. I love the simple illustrations. As I remember, you can follow the one line of the crayon through them all.

I met up again with The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf when I was in college. The illustrations grace the wall of the small ice cream parlor on the campus of Washington State University that offered amazing ice cream. Ferdinand was supposed to be a fighting bull (the story is set in Spain) but he'd rather sit under a tree and smell the flower. There is an unfortunate interaction with a bee causing a momentary lapse in his peaceful attitude and he finds himself in the bull ring. Even then, he was a pacifist before his time.

The King Who Rained was an after college discovery. Written and illustrated by Fred Gwynne (yes, the actor from 'The Munsters') it is a charming book of word play. The illustrations show how a little girl imagines such things as the king who rained, how her mother can be a little hoarse, or what a fork in the road might look like. Be sure to look for A Chocolate Moose for Dinner, and A Little Pigeon Toad, too.

Then, as a, um, mature adult, a new friend (a master gardener) showed me one of her favorite books. Simply called Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney. Miss Rumphius lives in a house overlooking the ocean. She wants to make the world a more beautiful place, so she scatters lupine seeds wherever she goes. I learned at a later time that there was a real 'lupine lady' and that the lupine blooming along in Maine coastline are her legacy. The illustrations are beautiful and subtle.

We all know that Humpty Dumpty had a great fall ... or .... was he pushed? Follow the trail and learn the truth in What Really Happened to Humpty? (as told by Joe Humpty to Jeanie Franz Ransom and illustrated by Stephen Axelson).

Reread your childhood favorites, look for new ones, it's worth it!

Reading Hermit With Dog