Black and White and Read All Over

 

By Elaine Viets

Beach reads. That’s what my novels are often called.

Those words are supposed to conjure up a carefree day by the sea, where readers have a cold drink in one hand and an entertaining book in the other.

Here’s the truth. I don’t like reading on the beach. It’s too hot. Between sweating, slapping on sunscreen and swatting sand flies, it’s hard to pay attention.

Besides, I grew up in St. Louis, which doesn’t have beaches. My favorite place to read was my grandparents’ backyard. I’d sit in the shade of my Grandmother’s honeysuckle vine with a cold glass of lemonade. The honeybees didn’t bother me. I wasn’t sweet enough.

I liked to read mysteries, mostly Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew.

Nancy had the ideal life for a teenage girl: She had a doting Daddy who bought her a car, lots of money, no annoying mother and a housekeeper to wait on her. Nancy also had a convenient boyfriend who only appeared when she wanted him around, and never tried to get in her pants.

Teenage boys were terrifying creatures to many young women and front-seat wrestling was a major sport. Back then, nice girls had to guard their virtue or they would be Damaged Goods and no nice man would marry them. At least, that’s what Mom told me.

So there I was, a nice Missouri girl, sitting under the honeysuckle reading Nancy Drew. Grandma had the old-fashioned round-back metal lawn chairs. I’d read in one and put my feet up on the other. The lush scent of honeysuckle and reading are forever linked in my mind.

So is the trickle of a brook. That was my second-favorite reading spot, by a brook in the Ozarks. I mean the Ozarks before Branson, Missouri, had hot tubs and country glitz.

My family spent vacations at tourist cabins in the Ozarks. The un-airconditioned cabins smelled faintly of mold and had kitchenettes. That meant Mom got to cook dinner for six with one frying pan and two beat-up pots on a two-burner stove. We kids slept in roll-away beds that cost fifty cents extra. With three rambunctious brothers, I didn’t have much privacy.

But during the day, I could take my book and read under a tree by an Ozark stream. I’d listen to the water tumble over the mossy stones while my family was getting sun-burned by the pool. Those afternoons were luxurious.

My third favorite reading spot was neither luxurious or romantic, but it sure was exciting.

Until I was in my teens, my bedtime was nine o’clock. My parents insisted on lights off when I wanted to read. I had my own room. I would seal off my door and stuff rugs in the cracks so the light wouldn’t show and wake up my parents.

Usually it worked.

When it didn’t, my furious mother would stomp down the hall and shove open the door. It was jammed by the rug.

Then it was definitely lights out for me. I had to sleep with my door open.

The thrill of reading was almost equaled by the thrill of not getting caught. (NOTE TO PARENTS: If you want your children to become bookworms, restrict their reading time.)

Now I can read any time I want. I like to go out in the early morning and sit by the pool at my condo. It’s on the Intracoastal Waterway, so I can watch the boats go by while I enjoy my book. I sit in one lawn chair and put my feet up in the other. I listen to the water slap the side of the pilings.

Sometimes I catch the faintest scent of honeysuckle.

 

 

 

Comments

[Harley]

Oh, you make me want to run away to a moldy cabin just like the ones we vacationed in. Thanks for the memories, Elaine.

And the beach isn't my favorite place to read either, but there is something about sand and suntan oil on the pages of a paperback that says "summer."

[Reine, Revenger of Inhumane Negatives]

Elaine, you sent me back to a lovely place in my childhood, a time when we lived in a cottage in the woods. I used to take my Nancy Drews and Agatha Christies to the top of a tall white pine, listen to the brook, and read. Sometimes I would sleep outside and read in the hammock that my grandfather had tied between two pines.

That was at the family's vacation house until, according to my father's side, my mother talked my great-grandmother into giving it to my parents. They took out a loan. Didn't repay it. Bank claimed it. The family is still angry about it, and after a few drinkies some of them cry. Can't really blame them, though. And hey, it gives us something to talk about at Christmas. Right?

[gaylin in vancouver]

I would read anywhere I could when I was a kid. I remember sitting on a log on a rocky BC beach and reading and totally tuning out everything. Great, take a kid on vacation and I ignore everything . . . As a family we did a lot of back yard tanning, didn't involve much reading, we would all veg out or tell jokes. If it got too hot we would hit the lawn chairs in the shade and read.

I had read my way through all the Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys etc at a pretty early age and my mom gave me free rein to read whatever she brought into the house. So I read Robert Ludlum, Steven King and a lot of generic horror books by the time of was 13 or so. My dad used to tell my mom to put her books away before they turned me into a serial killer . . . Ick, being a serial killer is way too messy.

There were no vacation homes or cabins in my realm, my parents would borrow someone's tent trailer for 10 days every summer, we would go camping and it usually rained the whole time. 2 parents, 4 kids, a wet tent trailer, fun times.

[Becky Hutchison]

I would read wherever I was. Mostly it was plopped on my bed or stretched out on the couch in our living room. I hated to go to the pool in the summer because I'd burn. Plus, I had to socialize with my friends, which also meant no reading.

For vacation my family usually went to a FL beach for two weeks. When I was little is was St. Pete, in junior high-Daytona Beach, in high school-Ft Lauderdale. Did I say I'd burn? On every damn trip? A lot of my time was spent recovering inside with Noxema slathered all over my body and a book in my hands. Sometimes for a lark, my dad (who also burned easily) and I would go to a laundromat to wash clothes, since we were the only two in our family who couldn't stay out in the sun.

Good times!

[William]

Elaine, you've triggered a flood of memories...:) The Hardy Boys, Holmes and Watson, Rudyard Kipling, Victor Hugo, Ellery Queen, and of course, Dame Agatha, all helped to create a fanatical book reader. To this day, I've still got some of each of the above in the Library Room, and it's like visiting old friends.

I was never smart enough to stuff the door crack with a towel, but a flashlight under the covers works nicely.

I'm sure most of us saw this, but it's worth repeating. In a recent episode of CASTLE, an FBI Agent was playing Alpha Male in the room, looked at Castle, and called him 'Nancy Drew'. Castle looked at the guy and replied, "Was that an insult? Because, you know, Nancy Drew solved ALL her cases." The guy was dumbfounded.

I thought it was brilliant...:)

[Donna]

Well I have to say my favorite place to read is the beach. I live in Milford, Connecticut which has beaches on Long Island Sound. There is always a nice breeze at the beach no matter how hot it is. Sunscreen no longer has to be slathered on - the new sprays which you use before you get there are fantastic and you will never burn and you don't end up with sticky hands. Also we are lucky enough to have a full service snack stand there as well as bathrooms. So I guess it really depends on which beach you are at. Can't wait for summer!

[Deb]

I have always read just about anywhere that I had enough light! When I was a child I shared a bedroom with three younger sisters, one of whom was afraid of the dark. The door to our room would be open slightly so that she could see that the hallway light was on. The foot of my bed (I had a top bunk) was near the door but I would take a book to bed with me, and lie down with my head at the foot of the bed so I could use the hallway light to read by. As soon as my parents noticed that my sister who was afraid of the dark had fallen asleep, they'd shut the hallway light. Oh, no!If one of my parents noticed that I was reading, they'd tell me to "get to sleep NOW! You can read tomorrow!" It was a half-hearted reprimand, though, because both of them were as addicted to books as I have always been.

We couldn't afford to go on vacation but my dad did take us on long rides on his one day off. I'd alternate reading with looking out at the scenery. I could read in the car, at home through the noise of my four younger siblings, with the TV on in the background, at the beach (we did go to the local beach), at the homes of my grandparents, at the library, etc.

The library's bookmobile came to my neighborhood once a week. My mom took us to the bookmobile the first couple of times I went, and then allowed us (usually the sister closest in age to me would come with me) to go by ourselves if she was busy with what my sister and I always called "the little kids". I read my way through everything for my age group and kept bugging the Bookmobile Ladies for suggestions for more reading. I got permission to borrow books from the junior high and high school sections of the bookmobile long before reaching those actual grades. Once when my mom had taken me to the downtown library with her and I headed straight for the junior high books, I was stopped by an employee (who didn't know me the way the bookmombile employees did) who told me that I was too young to read those books. My mom stepped in and told them that I had her permission to borrow books from that section of the library.

Today I continue to read everywhere - at home in bed, while eating, at the laundromat, on trains, ferries, planes, in waiting rooms. I get to appointments early specifically so I can read. About a year ago one of my doctors hired a new receptionist who got really bent out of shape when I showed up early for an appointment. I told her that I had a book and was happy to have the time to sit and read. She actually told me to go shopping (there's some outlet stores in the neighborhood) and come back in half an hour! I refused; I said "I don't shop: I read!" The doctor laughs that he can be running an hour behind and I'll never notice, because I'm too busy reading.

[Nancy Pickard]

Lovely post, Elaine.

Those Ozark cabins! Kind of awful, kind of wonderful. Check the sheets for spiders.

[Deb]

Donna,

I, too, live in Milford CT! Sounds like you go to Gulf Beach. I live close to there but usually spend more time at Anchor Beach. I drag my chair around to the shady spots so there won't be too much of a glare on my book.

Are you the same Donna who is the Yankees fan! (If so, smart choice:-)

[Sandi]

My family had a camper at a small family campground and we spent many summer weekends there. "My" chair was an old green butterfly chair that I read in upside down, my head on one of the bottom wings and my feet flopping over the back. It allowed me to prop my books on my belly, the perfect posture for reading. I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, but my favorite was Trixie Belden. Oh, how I wanted to be one of the Bob-Whites! My brother and I spent part of one summer with relatives when I was between first and second grade, and I had to use my cousin's library card. All I wanted were the Trixie Belden books, but she insisted I read the Black Stallion books. I powered through all fifteen or so in a couple of weeks so I could get back to my beloved Bob-Whites.

When I was in fifth grade we moved to a town that had a bookmobile (before that we had to drive to the library) and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I still have my bookmobile card. I had to read aloud to the lady to prove that I was able to read well enough - and quickly enough - to take more than four books, all from the adult section. I'd load up as many as I could carry and spend the next week in a daze, drifting from one magical place to another. I believe I actually spent too much time in books, as the real world is never as comfortable to me as that in books. When I was in high school the community created a permanent library and I donated many of the books I felt I'd outgrown, including all of my Trixie Beldens. I regret that because I later spent a lot of money on eBay buying them back. I have at least one copy of all but the last 3 books in the series (sorry, I just can't bring myself to pay $80 for a $1.95 paperback).

I gave myself a Kindle for Christmas, and now I can take my library with me. I read during my lunch break, I read in line at the bank, I read in bed, in the recliner, in the backyard. My mom is hooked on my Kindle, too, so guess what she's getting for Mother's Day! By the way - my email address even has the word "bibliophile" in it.

[Donna]

Hi Deb - What a small world! Yes, it is Gulf Beach. I'm the one with the Yankee cap on, radio earplugs in listening to Yankee game, and nose in a book. For me every day at the beach reading is a vacation. I just love it. We are also so fortunate to have a great library and they are always willing to get me whatever books I want. As a child I was an avid bookmobile customer. Just always loved books.

[Elaine Viets]

Sigh. Here's why I feel so at home at TLC. I'm surrounded by readers.
Donna, the Saturday bookmobile was the highlight of my week.
William, that Castle comment is a classic.
Reine, why are you revenging inhumane negatives? Is this a cause I need to join?

[Vivian]

I love those memories of the cabins down at Lake of the Ozarks! I slept looking out over the lake! Memories....

[Tracy in NC]

Great memories, Elaine. Only in NC we rented small houses at the coast for summer vacations. Those houses by the ocean always had paperback romances that I hid from my mother and read like crazy!

Yes, I read under the covers with a flashlight until my parents caught me. On summer weekend afternoons, my dad would yell at me to put my book down and go outside. When I was 13, he invested in a community pool membership to keep me busy outdoors swimming...only I took books to the pool and read like crazy while covered in baby oil. I'm awaiting skin cancer any day now after all those summers laying by the pool.

Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys (I read them all) had nothing on my favorite mystery-solving group - The Three Investigators. Also called Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. I liked them best as they seemed more realistic -- their schoolwork and chores got in the way of their investigating! Like Nancy, they always solved their cases. That Castle comment was great!

I am fortunate to have raised a reader as well. My son is now 20 and I used to let him keep the lights on and read as long as he wanted! He actually got in trouble in elementary school for reading too much. He would read while walking to the cafeteria and would run into people...the teacher claimed he was a danger to others! Eventually he learned not to read while walking, but he won every reading contest throughout school and has no problem in college now with lengthy reading assignments!

My ex-husband griped I always had my nose in a book...I usually replied I would rather read than watch NASCAR. Readers SHOULD NOT marry non-readers!

[William]

Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators! Oh, man, I'd forgotten them!

Here's a British version:

http://www.sirrogermoore.net/crimefighters.htm

Never published in the US, now extremely expensive collectibles.

[Laura (in PA)]

Oh, I love being among a group of people who get it.

I had my first library card when I was 4 (you had to be able to write your name), and brought home stacks for my siblings to read to me. My sister can still recite "Green Eggs and Ham" by heart. We moved when I was 8, and in that place I got to experience the bookmobile. I remember going into its cool interior in the hot, hot summer and sitting on the floor looking for books. We moved again when I was 12, and those summers, through high school, I rode my bike to the library, an old building, and spent many hours in its different rooms and musty basement.

We didn't do many beaches when I was a kid, and when we did, our beaches were at lakes (Central NY - finger lakes, Lake Ontario, other local lakes - I love how many lakes are in that area). I didn't spend a lot of time outside to read, since, like Becky, I would just burn. I spent a lot of time in my bedroom, the basement family room (cooler there - we never had air conditioning), and the screened-in porch my father built. I was also the kid who was told to "get your nose out of that book and go outside!" Even when we vacationed a couple of times at the Outer Banks, I don't remember reading on the beach, but reading in our little cottage for hours. For a time, my favorite reading position was on my stomach on my bed, resting my cheek on the edge of the mattress, with the book on the floor, and one hand holding it open and turning the pages. How weird is that?

I've always loved mysteries - I read all of Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, the Rabbi books. And mixed in the Little House books, the Louisa May Alcott books (I had a set of 6 of them), the Beany Malone books, the Anne of Green Gables series, The Secret Garden (read many times). Ah, the memories.

My daughter and I went to an Antiques Fair over the weekend - nice stuff, but mostly too rich for my blood. The one stall where I spent the most time had a bunch of old books for sale - I was exclaiming over the Trixie Beldens, Nancy Drews, Cherry Ames'... so fun.

I loved that Castle quote when I saw it on the show. He rocks.

[Deb]

Donna, I'll switch back and forth from Anchor to Gulf Beach this summer - maybe I'll see you! I'll be juggling books and a water bottle.

Our library is really good at taking recommendations from borrowers. They have often purchased books that I initially borrowed through Inter-library loan, because when they saw the book they decided it would be a good one for our library to own.

Among the books I read as a kid were the Nancy Drew mysteries, Hardy Boys mysteries, Trixie Belden mysteries, Little House on the Prairie, the Betsy-Tacy books, a series of biographies of famous people(we always called them the Blue books, because they all had blue covers), the Cherry Ames books, and oh, so many other books.

I remember one time going to the bookmobile on a Thursday, borrowing the maximum number of books, going home and reading them all, and returning them to the main library the next day because a neighbor took me there after school. (I lived in Stamford at that time.)The library employee asked me why I was returning books that I had just borrowed: "don't you want to read them?" She seemed astonished when I told her that I had read all of them since the previous afternoon.

I was sick a lot as a child, up until about the second grade. My dad got into the habit of going to bookstores at lunch time and picking up books for me. I read a lot of biographies that way.

[Maryann Mercer]

Ah Elaine, my childhood cabin was in Northern Wisconsin...and the owners of the resort(sounds better than saying "a bunch of cabins in the woods") had this huge storage shed, one part of which was dedicated to their huge book collection...mysteries from Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and Eberhardt and fiction from all over. We could choose as many as we liked as long as we didn't drop them in the lake and returned them before we headed back to Illinois. It was heaven, interrupted only by swimming and early morning fishing. The weather didn't matter as long as we could head for the "shed" and pick out a new book. This probably explains why bookstores and libraries are my friends today :o)

[Laura (in PA)]

My husband isn't much of a reader, but I'm lucky in that he tolerates my addiction. He steps over the piles around the house, and even told me about a new bookstore he saw in his travels yesterday.

I could never read in the car, which always annoyed me. Makes me nauseated. I now happily listen to audiobooks on my iPod during long drives.

[Tracy in NC]

Oh William, now I want to read those! I have the entire collection of The Three Investigators - hardback, paperback, different editions, etc. I collected for years and even checked fan club sites (yes, they have fan clubs) for rare editions.

I visit bookstores everywhere I travel and always spend too much time browsing flea market stalls with old books, Goodwill store book sections and antique fair book stalls. I keep putting off purchasing a Kindle...I just like the feel of a real book too much.

And just for fun, had anyone ever played The Hardy Boys drinking game? There is a Nancy Drew one as well that you can Google. This is hilarious, although I believe it became popular long after I was out of college.
http://www.ringthis.com/tv_drinking_games/hardyboy.htm

[Elaine Viets]

Tracy, the Hardy Boys drinking game is the best!
William, enjoyed the link on the Investigators. Was that during Roger Moore's Bond period?
I can't read in a car either, and counting cows and license plates was no fun.
Strange how we all stayed in the same type of cabin, no matter where we vacationed, isn't it?

[Elaine Viets]

THIS JUST IN!!!!!!
Our Harley has been nominated for a Thriller Award for Best Short Story for "Madeeda," in the Charlaine Harris Anthology "Crimes by Moonlight."
Congratulations, Harley. It's a marvelously creepy story.

[William]

Elaine, if I have my years right, the series was during THE PERSUADERS! period. The series is still priceless to watch, even after all these years.

Go Harley! "Madeeda" was terrific!

[Alan P.]

I knew this was my kind of place! I don't remember having a "reading spot". I read everywhere. I do remember staying up way to late with Sherlock Holmes and Ian Flemming.

My work requires me to watch computers download,update and reboot. One is behind me at the moment on update 13 of 24. I put Kindle on my phone and now read a few pages as I go. It beats watching the blue bar go by.

Around Table Rock Lake you can still rent those nasty cabins. There are a still some around Branson as well. I have not been to Branson is about ten years. There were still a dozen motor lodges with names you will never see anyplace else. One thing is that Mom and Pop are as likely to be Indian as Hillbilly.

[Margaret Maron]

Oh, Laura! Eight Cousins was my favorite-est book for 2 whole years after reading it at the age of 8. Then I stumbled upon The Secret Garden. Bliss!

[Karen in Ohio]

Early, prodigious reader: check

Avid bookmobile customer: check

Reading everywhere I go: check

Reading while walking home from school: check

Nonreading first husband: check

My peeps: TLC

[Karen in Ohio]

HARLEY!! Fantastic news. Best of luck!

[Storyteller Mary]

In the back yard under a tree, once in a while looking up to the lace of leaves against sky, going back inside the hot house only to refill the iced tea . . . ah, the luxury of summer reading with no homework to interfere . . . (and under the cover with a flashlight after "lights out."
One Prudential Agents' fishing trip, I decided quickly that I did not actually like fishing, so I read in the lovely old hotel and just looked at the lake -- also heaven!
One of the best things about retirement is being able to read when, where, and what I want!

[Diana in STL]

Reading has always been a passion for me. Like so many of you Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, Little House ...I always had books from the school library and used my library card during the summers. Some of my favorite presents were books. Most of my books from childhood were read, reread and passed along to my nieces and nephews. My first gift to every newborn is a book.

My niece who is 40 now has told me so many times that one of the things she always looked forward to was getting a bookstore gift certificate from me at Christmas. A tradition I have continued with her daughter (gift card now though).

For a family reunion project I asked people to write about favorite childhood memories and a different niece mentioned the Little House boxed set I had given her for Christmas one year as one of her most special memories.

I loved to sit in the same kind of metal lawn chair Elaine is referring to (sort of a shell back)and read. We had a lovely little patch of woods in our back yard so that was a favorite spot.

The only beach in my neighborhood was the rocky shore of Flat River Creek in Flat River, MO (now called Park Hills) - so no beach reads unless we went to a lake or swimming in the Big River.

I always have a book with me (or my ipod or new Nook). I could never read in the car as a kid unless it was a comic book otherwise I got sick. When I'm driving I listen to books on the ipod.

[Storyteller Mary]

Yay, Harley! "Madeeda" is a powerful story!
Deb, with you on the maximum book rules -- it was so hard to find fat enough books to last until next time . . . why couldn't they understand that? My library now is so much nicer.

[Storyteller Mary]

Karen, with you on all but the husband -- Jan read; in fact, we even read aloud to each other . . .

[marie]

I always had a reverence for my father as he was always reading. I would see him in his bed either fingering his rosary or reading The Three Musketeers or a mystery novel. When he ran out of books he would read the encyclopedias from cover to cover.
I read Grimm's' Fairy Tales, Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, the Hardy Boys and then ran out of books.
I turned to music and was constantly trying to be creative and other endeavours distracted me.
The most pleasure I had was when the Saturday Evening Post arrived. I would manage to take it to the backyard where Adirondack chairs awaited me.
I love the short biographies and felt connected to the world.
My husband grew up in a one room schoolhouse and read everything he could get his hands on including the complete works of Mark Twain. When we met I knew he was a renaissance man but I beat him in a game of cribbage in my backyard in those Adirondack chairs and the rest is history.
Now of course if I have to do creative things such as knitting I long to get back to my reading. I love it and I love you guys.
Harley, a big congratulations to you. I have the anthology and was scared to read your story..there, now I said it. But I am going to enjoy it, I know. And I am reading DEAD EX on my nook because the font size is good to my eyes. I collect the print versions too so I guess I am a reading fool.

[Debby]

I do read on the beach, or by a lake or stream. In the car. In a chair or on a blanket... :)

And I have fond memories of Nancy Drew. I had just discovered the joy of reading (5th grade) for fun. That summer, we were doing our road trip to El Paso TX to visit my grandmother (we always took a different route and did some sightseeing). That year, we drove past Detroit to visit friends...whose eldest daughter gave me her stock of Nancy Drew's. I read seven of them in two days. Shocked my mom. Missed Daniel Boone's birthplace, too. LOL!

[Karen in Ohio]

I really hate to sit in the sun. My husband used to be a sunlover, and would make fun of me for covering up, sitting in the shade, and staying pale all summer. Now he's had numerous skin cancers, and I have not, so far (knock wood). I'm perfectly happy being pale! And reading in the sun strains the eyes too much, anyway.

[Brunonia]

In the summer, at the house in New Hampshire, I read in the treehouse my dad helped us build. Loved Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames. If it was too hot, I would swim out to the raft, holding my book over my head. It always got wet and spotted, but I didn't care. It is was raining, I read on the porch in the hammock. My life changed forever the summer I read To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Mo]

I too was an avid reader growing up. Every night I read under the covers until I was caught. In the summer I would head out to the field behind the house and lay down in the deep grass where no one could see me and read the day away. Stuck inside during the long New Hampshire winters the only peaceful place I could find to read was in the stairwell. I would curl up with on the middle steps and read in quiet contentment with the house was a flurry of activity on the floors above and below me. The bookmobile only came by twice a month. When I ran out of fiction to read I moved on to the encyclopedia to fill my need to read. I was pleasantly surprised to find out my husband did the same thing as young lad.

[Reina]

I had a "sleeping porch" off my bedroom in the house I grew up in, and us kids would sleep out there all summer long (on cots, air mattresses, and later roll-aways). It was my favorite spot to read because it was shaded by a huge elm tree and the birds, the leaves, and the breeze all provided wonderful counterpoint to whatever I was reading. I learned to love Charles Dickens one summer (I decided I needed to read the "Classics" between 6th and 7th grade) and proudly checked off titles on the required reading list I got from somewhere...

I was blessed to have a library 3 blocks away and was well known by the librarians in the children's section, who eventually had to vouch for me to take books from the adult section when I needed more challenges to my stories. I had to laugh that one of the librarians from my childhood later changed libraries to the one I used as an adult, and she got to know my children well too! (Funny how she seemed so old to me when I was young, and seemed so much younger to me when re-meeting her as an adult!).

My favorite reading spot now is on my swing in the front yard, or my recliner in front of the open windows, although I read anywhere I can, and adore my Nook!

[Deb]

Oh, you are all reminding me of books I enjoyed that I didn't mention earlier: the Anne of Green Gables series, The Secret Garden, the Agatha Christie books, and there were so many, many more!

I loved reading the Dr Seuss books to my younger siblings!

My parents had a subscription to a book club for kids and we read those books until they fell apart. In addition to novels, there was a multi-volume anthology of different kinds of stories for kids, many of which were individual chapters from novels. I would read the individual chapters and then go to the library to borrow the books that the chapters were from so I could read the WHOLE story.

Maybe someone can help jog my memory: a family that lived near us when I was growing up gave us a lot of books that their daughter (who was a few years older) had read. The books had been passed along to them from someone else. Among my favorites was a book of short stories that I think, but am not entirely certain, were set in the Shetland Islands. They were sort of like fairy tales, and they were delightful, and sometimes scary!(For example, I think there were stories about fairies that stole children!) I loved pretending that I was in the middle of the stories! I'd love to re-read them. I keep looking for them at used book stores but since I don't really have anything to go on that would help identify them, I haven't been successful.

[lil Gluckstern]

Congratulations to Harley!
I don't remember a time when I didn't read. Summer cabins or hotel rooms in rooming house type summer places. The warm air, buzzing of insects and BOOKS. I remember wanting a dollar a week allowance so I could buy my very own Nancy Drew.Did the library have summer checkouts? I seem to remember that. It's been a long time, but I am still addicted. My bars are the Local Indie and the library, and Amazon...Better stop now.

[Pam aka SisterZip]

The public library was across the street from my elementary school. The Kathryn Linnemann branch of the St. Charles City/County Library System. It was an old house that had lots of nooks and crannies to hid. The children's books (from early readers to adolescence) were on the second floor and there was a wonderful window seat. On rainy days I loved to sit there and read Nancy Drew, Beverly Cleary, Cherry Ames and so many others. I would go over after school and pick out a couple of books and sit and read. My mom worked and we would have to call her to let her know we got home from school (and to get our list of chores, lol). When my brother would call her and tell her I wasn't home, she would call the library and tell them to find me and tell me to be home by 5pm.

My dad didn't read anything but the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (or now only the Post-Dispatch) and just didn't care. Mom let all of us read what ever we wanted. There were no guidelines as to what was appropriate for our age. I was about 12 or 13 when I started reading "Joy in the Morning" by Betty Smith and my older sister had a fit. It was too old for me, she claimed. My mom took the book and read it first. She gave it back and told my sister there was nothing wrong with it.

When I was in high school, we had to read Catcher in the Rye. Like every other school in the country there were protests. They sent home a permission slip. My mom decided she should read it first since they went to the trouble of sending home the slip. When she finished, she gave it back to me (actually threw it) and said, "I don't see what the big deal is. I thought it was a stupid story."

[Pam aka SisterZip]

My granddaughter, Emma, is now 9 years old. When she was in the kindergarten & first grade, she resisted learning how to read. She had no use for it at all. Her mom read to her every night and all 3 of her grandmas were willing to do the same when ever she visited, so why should she have to learn? The grandmas decided we would stop reading to her, in hopes that it would encourage her. Nope. The only thing that got her motivated was when her mother had a severe case of larygitis and could not talk for almost 2 weeks. It was then that Miss Em decided maybe, just maybe, she should learn to read for herself. She now has a 7th grade reading level and has her nose in a book all of the time. When I gave her a huge stack of books for Christmas, I hugged her and told her she made her Grandma Pam so very happy!

[Laura (in PA)]

Pam, I love your Mom.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Yes,flashlights under the covers!

Was there--Donna Parker? And Judy Bolton? And Cherry Ames, Student Nurse! Oh, and Vicki Barr, girl stewardess. (Could it have realy been called "Girl Stewardess"???

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

William, LOVE that Castle line!

And HARLEY! Congratulations!! xo

[Katherine C.]

Like many others have said, I have always read pretty much anywhere and everywhere that I could, and some of my favorites as a youngster included the old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. One of my favorite spots growing up, as weird as it sounds, was sitting on the bathroom floor with my back to the heating vent — it was one of the few places I was guaranteed not to be bothered for a while until Dad would start pounding on the door to demand I get back to whatever else I was supposed to be doing. Another favorite place is at the lake, which to me is Table Rock in Missouri. My aunt and uncle have a small A-frame cabin a short jaunt past the bridge in Kimberling City, and many a summer weekend was spent there growing up. We still cram the entire family in over the 4th of July (although we've now had to expand the sleeping quarters to include tents set up out back) and I still love spending time laid out on the bench on the dock reading as the breeze blows by and the dock bobs up and down on the water. Sheer bliss. And William, I must admit I clapped like a cheerleader when Castle issued that retort. Fantastic.

[gaylin in vancouver]

I remember reading Cherry Ames and getting all starry about possibly being a nurse. My mom gently informed me of the existence of bedpans. Buh bye nursing.

When I was in elementary school the town I lived in was too small to have a library, during school we had access to and I read my way through the school library but summers we had to re-read whatever was in the house or the scholastic books we could afford to order. I bet I am not the only one who swooned when the new scholastic catalog came out!

[Reine]

Elaine, sorry about that tag... leftover from Cornelia's hugely funny April 9th blog with the anagram generator. My name came out "Reine, Revenger of Inhumane Negatives." So there you are. Nothing to join - just a funny.

[Elaine Viets]

It was funny, Reine. The mystery is solved.
You all tell such lovely stories.
My Mom got me a set of Little Golden Book Encyclopedias at the supermarket. She could buy them one book a week at a discount price. I read those books cover to cover and loved them. I also had my mom's set of Nancy Drews, the ones with the red covers.

[Elaine Viets]

Good luck to all our TLCers laboring over your taxes tonight. May you all get refunds.

[Reine]

Golden Books! I loved the one with the little puppy...? Oh... and Ferdinand the bull. They were so great. Screened in back porch. Wicker rocking chair. Someone's lap. And a Golden Book. Never got any better.

[vibram five fingers]

The thrill of reading was almost equaled by the thrill of not getting caught.

[vibram five fingers]

Then it was definitely lights out for me.