Here and There: Favorite Childhood Books

my beloved Trixie Belden series

One of the first books I remember loving and reading and re-reading was called "The Adventures of a Brownie".  I don't know where it came from and I've tried to find it again but it is difficult to find.  I did find an online version here, but the illustrations seem different than from my memory.  I think they were different because I remember Brownie looking tiny and not so very scary and the book had an old brown or green cover I cannot remember which and the cover was very thready.  This is the same version of the story though for I remember Brownie living in the coal cellar and I remember the cat and Dolly the cow.  I see the publish date was 1947, so I don't know how we came to have it, whether it was my mother's or picked up somewhere, perhaps I will see if she remembers, but always I remember it being one I would pick up and read over and over again.

That is the one I remember from the furthest back.  There are others though that I have loved enough to hunt down and collect.

There were two other books I also remember reading over and over again and strangely they were about dolls.  I never remember playing with dolls growing up, but somehow I took to these books.  There was a pink book that was illustrated by Edward Gorey (I loved the illustrations before I even was old enough to know how cool Edward Gorey was) and it was called Merry, Rose and Christmas Tree June and I remember Jane's Great Aunt wanting to show her off and going to the Doll-Arama that had all the fancy dolls and always remember the description and crazy picture of one's hair falling out.  In the end Jane fancies a plain old doll that doesn't "do" anything on an upper shelf behind forgotten Christmas ornaments.

The other book was from when I was a bit older and it was called Behind The Attic Wall and an unloved orphan goes to live with her Great-Aunts (again with the great Aunts) and hears voices beyond the wall where she discovers living dolls, a mystery, love, and imagination.  I actually bought this book for Emily to read a year ago.  She didn't seem to be as fond of it as I was, but it remains my favorite and I'm glad to have it to read again.

Most of all though the one that has stuck with me was the Trixie Belden mystery series.  Trixie Belden is the thing in my family.  We have all read them.  My mother and my Aunts read them.  They are huge fans, my mother recently bought my Aunt a Trixie Belden charm.  My sister, my cousins and I have all read them, and recently some of them were reissued in Canada and my mother got them for me and Emily has begun to read them.  I have some of the original editions boxed up, but they are so delicate it's hard to read them.  Trixie was basically a Nancy Drew type except she wasn't rich, she was a normal kid, a tomboy and lived in a normal home and had brothers and a wealthy neighbor who became her best friend Honey.  They solved all sorts of mysteries and I loved them like they were friends.  Even now I can read and re-read them.

There are a million that I can think of but these are the ones that stand out.  I wonder sometimes which are the books that will stand out for my children.  There is an over abundance of books in this house.  It will be interesting to see which ones they remember fondly enough to hold onto or find again when they have grown.