Your Very Own Book
Posted at 5:30 AM on May 13, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(63 Comments)
Today our special membership incentive comes through a partnership with First Book. For every contribution at the ten dollar per month level or above, a new book will be provided for a Minnesota child in need.
I can't recall my first book, but I do have a clear memory of a grade school reading fair and the intense excitement that came with the knowledge that we would soon file into the gymnasium where the tables were covered with books, and I would be able to pick one to take home. I remember the light in the room and the feel and smell of the fresh volumes, the anticipation building and challenge of picking just one, but I can't recover the name of the book I chose. What does that mean?
Maybe it's shopping I love, rather than reading.
I'd like to say I picked a great work of art - a classic piece of literature recognized by experts as a key volume in any well-rounded education and a remarkably mature selection for a 4th grader.
But I'm pretty sure the book I chose wasn't a classic, or remarkable, or even famous. It might have been this one.
Tom Swift and his Triphibian Atomicar was my Moby Dick - a monumental tome. It wasn't great because Tom did battle with the Sultan of Kabulistan's angry spear hurling guys on horseback. This book was great because the dude had a car that could fly. And it could go underwater. If Ahab had had Tom Swift's technology, Melville's tedious story could have been wrapped up in about two hundred pages, tops.
"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I will activate the repeletron in my Triphibian atomicar, and with the power generated from my ingenious atomic capsule I strike at thee in such a clever way as to paralyze thee completely, and hopelessly, and forever, for thou art now my prisoner at last, cursed creature, and it is time for a celebratory cup of cocoa with my best friends Bud Barclay and Queequeg."
That's that. Job finished. Next invention - the Megascope Space Prober!
What's the earliest book you can remember?
Comments (63)
I remember the book The Pokey Little Puppy about one pup in a litter that kept getting in trouble and often had to go without dinner because he got home too late. My children were allowed to carefully read it when they were small, and I still have the book.
As a boy I was fond of a series of boy books by an author whose name was, I think I remember it right, Stephen Meader. In these books boys were involved in adventures that were some times in historic settings and often out in of doors.
I couldn't get enough of these adventure books and it was many years before I found out there was more to novels than adventure writing. It was the 50's and I was young and life was simple.
I loved the Pokey Little Puppy as well...is there also one about a rolly polly puppy? They were/are Golden Books. The other early book I remember borrowing from the library and loving was Ferdinand the Bull. I still love the illustration of him sitting on a hill sniffing a flower.
Good memories...
Ooooh, dangerous topic. Reading is one of the great joys of my life - I've always been a reader- a bookaholic. Besides the little Golden books that I had as a child (including Pokey Puppy!), I also had A Child's Garden of Verse by Robert Lewis Stevenson (actually I still have it but it doesn't have a cover anymore!). I read it over and over and I still remember many of the poems, but one of my favorites was "At the Seaside":
When I was down beside the sea,
A wooden spade they gave to me.
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup
In every hole the sea came up,
Til it could come now more.
I'd better stop now. I could go on... and on... and on.......
I still have my first and most precious book and, in fact, am looking at it as I write this. It's called "Willy Woo-OO-oo" written by Betty Ren Wright and illustrated by Florence Sarah Winship, and published in 1951 by Whiteman Publishing of Racine, WI. They published a series of Tell-a-Tale books with names like "The Fuzzy Duckling," "Little Pony" and "Franky the Fuzzy Goat." :-)
"Willy Woo-OO-oo" is a big red fire truck (What are you?) with a siren on his nose and "a bright red light that winks and glows." He is driven by Fireman Jim and has a best friend: Pumping Engine Pete. And, oh yes, Daisy rides in the front seat. I've read this book to my son and, now, to both of my young grandchildren.
Thanks RH friends for letting me tell this memory of my childhood!
I remember a book called "Copper Toed Boots" about a quaker girl and have no idea what I thought copper toed boots looked like. They sound dangerous in a thunderstorm. Also a neighbor gave me "Beautiful Joe" about an ugly lovable dog that I recall reading sitting in our apple tree. Anyone remember the orange covered biography books?
Barb- so sorry about Alba's twins; you poured your heart and soul into providing them the best chance to live. I wish I remembered a childhood book about goats.
Jenny
don't remember many books - neither parent read to us or encouraged reading - but i DO remember A Child's Garden of Verses. i liked the poem about going to bed by day (my pet peeve when i was 7 i suppose) and even though my Mom HATED Dr. Suess, i remember a few Horton books also. is there a line "i meant what i said and i said what i meant - an elephant is ....... one hundred per cent!" in the somewhere?
didn't read Pooh till i returned to college in my late 20s and was taking Norwegian (reading Pooh pa Norsk was so fun!) and fell in love with Pooh and all the characters. so my BBF, now husband, gave me the whole series in english. read them when i was 27
i'm happy when i hear that parents read to their kids - forms good habits and sounds like a life-long love of reading! thanks for doing that, all you parents and grandparents!
Oh yes, Robert Louis Stevens poetry! My favorite was about the swing..."Up in the air and down!" I worked at a library in Bellingham WA and when I left they gave me a copy beautifully illustrated by Brian Wildsmith.
Another favorite was the Little Engine That Could..."I think I can I think I can I think I can" up the hill and "I knew I could I knew I could" down the hill.
I'm going to go with the first book I remember reading. I have lots of recollections about books my grandmother read to me, but I don't remember their names. The first book that made an impression upon me was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron. I purchased it for my children to read, but I think only one of my children actually read it, too. :-)
forgot to say, Dale - BBF Steve read about the Moby Dick transition you wrote and got a good laugh - MD is one of his favorite books.
I remember The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (sp?) The Story of Ping, as well as The Color Kittens. So sorry to hear about Alba's kids. I loved Bart's photo yesterday. Does anyone remember watching Captain Kangaroo in the early 1960's when he would read what I now know as really great books?
We had "The REAL Mother Goose." My mother used to say, "We can't afford to buy books for you. You read too much." She was probably right. Perhaps that's why I worked in libraries starting in elementary school.
A wise woman I know says that you should tell children that reading is a guilty pleasure worth sneaking around for.
Dale, Doesn't today's discussion need Jimmy Durante's "Today I Read a Book"?
Right you are, Beth-Ann.
Durante is coming up in moments. Thanks for the suggestion.
I remember the Pokey Little Puppy too, and never have strawberry shortcake without jogging the memory of it.
My older sister routinely taught me everything she learned in school, so I learned to read at about age 3 and really don't have any memory of not being able to read. When my kindergarten teacher found out I could read, she sent home stacks of books with me every day. I remember Millions of Cats, Make Way For Ducklings, The Five Chinese Brothers, and One Fish, Two Fish.
The Son Volt song brought to mind a classic I read when I was a little older...the song contains the line about "rode hard and put away wet", which was what happened to Black Beauty when she was sold to an inconsiderate owner, and she almost died from the experience. If I hadn't read that book, I would likely have no idea what that phrase meant.
From the 50's - Smokey the Bear and Frosty the Snowman. I have copies of each (golden books) that I found at church bazaars. Inside the Smokey book is a 2-sided form from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service. One side has "Smokey the Bear" words and music, the other has a conservation pledge: "I give my pledge as an American to save and faithfully to defend from waste the natural resources of my country -its soil and minerals, its forests, waters and wildlife." It's printed in green ink and is bordered with charming illustrations of Smokey and his forest animal friends.
When I was in upper elementary, I fell in love with "Harriet the Spy". Her friends abandoned her for writing unfavorably about them in her notebook. I identified because the same thing happened to me in 3rd grade for stealing pencils out of my classmates' desks. Eventually, Harriet was forgiven and so was I.
I remember a few Dr. Seuss books I had as a boy..."You Will Go to The Moon" was my fav. A story about a boy being taken to the moon by real astronauts, weightlessness, a colony of humans on the moon, etc! I was sure it was going to be me, as did a lot of other baby boomers, I'm sure. sigh...
Mike, it's not too late for you to start a colony on the moon. Don't give up the dream!
Peter Mulvey quoted "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" by TS Eliot in "The Trouble With Poets". Never thought I'd hear that in a song on the radio. See what we have in Radio Heartland!
Just thought of another book song: "Everyday I Write The Book". Elvis Costello singing it is quite nice.
Good Morning!
What a great topic! Growing up without a TV made me a voracious reader as a kid and Tom Swift Jr. was the first series I read. I recall waiting for them to show up at the library so I could read the next one. There was also the Hardy Boys and even though it was a "girl's" series, Nancy Drew. Each summer the library had a reading challenge of some sort where books were presented in a pyramid and you got points for reading at each level. I ran through them by the end of June several years and moved on to the next grade level or lost interest after completing the challenge.
Those books and reading experiences all pale compared to my love of Harold And The Purple Crayon series. How cool was it that he could draw any world he wanted? Thanks to MPR for participating in getting books into kids hands!
Oh boy - books. I'm a bookaholic like a lot of us RH listeners. The Five Chinese Brothers, a book about Tom Terrific (don't recall the title), boatloads of Dr. Seuss, one called Sam, Bangs and Moonshine...and one by a local author long since out of print called The Monster's Nose Was Cold (a delightful book - I didn't own it, but checked it out from the school library *a lot*).
Once I got onto reading to myself, I ripped through the entire series of the Little House books - including Farmer Boy and West from Home (both appreciably less exciting than the first few when your a girl of 7 or 8). Then on to Encyclopedia Brown, Harriet the Spy and on and on.
I, too, remember going to book fairs at school - ours were in the library - and being anxious and excited and a little sad that I only had enough money for one book (one! oh the difficulty of choosing just one!). I'm pretty sure some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder came home that way - as did Stuart Little and - oh dear. It was just one book I was supposed to remember, wasn't it?
Greetings Heartlanders! I loved reading as a child and always had my nose in a book -- can't remember my first, though. Loved the Black Stallion books, autobiographies and "The Sinking of the Bismarck" from WWII. I was odd ...
My friend had the Dr. Seuss books, which I loved because I didn't have them. My favorite book I remember at home was an old book of Norse, Greek and Roman myths with a few watercolor illustrations. I was fascinated by the Gorgon monsters, Hercules labors and all the assorted bad ass gods in mythology.
Although I usually prefer non-fiction, I am eagerly awaiting the "Angels and Demons" movie, having loved the book and both versions of "The Da Vinci Code." (P.S. "Star Trek" ROCKED!)
As a grade school kid, the only non-animal (horse/dog) book I loved was the Mary Poppins series...she was no Julie Andrews and I loved her persnippity, cranky ways...not that I like persnippity, cranky people, but she had wit...as I recall.
Hey, thanks for the John Hartford tune! Was that an LP?
I recall a book I think was titled "Make Way for Ducklings" about a mama duck leading her ducklings right through town stopping traffic.
We also had several large books of stories, I remember one about dancing princesses who snuck out at night to dance but don't worry, it didn't give me any ideas or anything....
Cynthia, you're right - the Mary Poppins of the P.L. Travers books would never have sung "A Spoonful of Sugar". I loved those books too.
Also the Doctor Doolittle books - scant resemblance between the books and the movie there too.
Hi Heartlanders.
My mom was a believer in reading and got me started early by reading to me. I do not remember my first, but my parents bought me a subscription to mail-order books. The series I loved the most was "The Happy Hollisters". This was a large family that went all over visiting places and solving mysteries as they went. I practically waited by the mailbox for the next one to arrive.
I, at one time, had nearly 300 books on shelves in my room. Most of these I had read 4-5 times each. I guess I did not have much of a social life growing up, but the books kept me company.
Donna - I was definitely a Captain Kangaroo kid! I even did some of the crafts - I particularly remember making walkie talkies about of cups and string! But I loved the reading best: Caps for Sale, Make Way for Ducklings, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Harry the Dirty Dog!
And Donna, I also adored Harriet the Spy. (I studied this later in life in a Kid Lit course in college and all my classmates thought it was too bad that Harriet didn't write a nicer column toward the end - that she should have "learned something". I told them all they were completely missing the point!)
sorry... the first Donna comment was actually for Renee!
There are two books that I remember as favorites. One was "Ping", about a Chinese duck used to dive for fishes on the Yangtze River. I always thought it was rather cruel that they put a ring around Ping's neck so he couldn't swallow the fish. He was just a work duck.
The other book is one of my lifetime favorites. "Bayou Suzette" by Lois Lenski. It takes place on Bayou Lafitte, south of New Orleans, and has lots of French words in it. The illustrations include a big flood, going through the above-ground cemeteries; and a pirogue in the bayou used for gathering Spanish moss for mattresses. The colorful language and unusual culture were fascinating. The first trip I took to New Orleans, I drove down to Lafitte to see the area - oyster shell parking lots, above-ground cemeteries, the bayou, nutria, a fais-do-do. Really cool.
Kim, the John Hartford tune was, in fact, on an lp.
You must have heard the scratching sound, perfectly reproduced, digitally, through your computer speakers.
And yes, I remember "Make Way for Ducklings" too. If it were being written today, the ducklings story would strike people as impossibly fantastic - more improbable than travel to a distant star. Cars stopping? Never!
I ordered a lot of books in grade school (early 70s) from Scholastic Book Clubs. I still have them, and recently re-read some of my favorites:
The Ghost of Dibble Hollow
The Mystery of the Witches Bridge
The Secret of Terror Castle
One of my gifts from my favorite Uncle Leonard was "Time Cat" by Lloyd Alexander. Somehow that book was misplaced over the years, but a couple years back I bought a new copy and re-read it.
Joanne mentioned "The Sinking of the Bismarck." I probably read that too, but in grade school, another WWII book that was popular was "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo."
My daughter is now ordering books from Scholastic. I'm happy to write that check.
Yes, Make Way for Ducklings, the Five Chinese Brothers (I remember especiallythe illustration of the one who could stretch his neck) and Millions of Cats...as I try to curb the growth of my feral cat population, I think of that book often.
Our book club is reading US Grant's Memoirs of the Civil War so I thank you for Ashokan Fairwell yesterday. Might you have time this week or next to play Kitty Popcorn for us?
Thanks.
Dale, I did not hear any abused lp noises on John Hartgords song, but I know it's not on CD and maybe won't ever be. I think you don't play him often enough or else you take more care with your lps than most of us do!
Do you have him singing "Gentle on my Mind"? I hear him sing it at the Walker one time. He wrote it and boy did it sound great! Much gentler than the commercial versions.
Kim, I agree, never enough John Hartford! I love that he put at least a bit of "Gentle on My Mind" on most if not all of his albums.
oh, boy, children's books! my favorites!!! loved a bunch already mentioned--i was a captain kangaroo kid too, and the child of a teacher and an english lit professor.....so one of my childhood memories is having my father read middle english to me (sigh).
early favorites were Stone Soup, The Three Little Kittens, Part-Time Dog, The Little House, and Grandma Loves Me (the little girl in the book wore a fuzzy red sweater i could actually feel the fuzziness of--SO cool).
Charlotte's Web, of course. And my mom read the Narnia chronicles to us in the car on long trips from Sioux Falls to our cabin on lake superior.
a scholastic book from school called The Forgotten Door was read by all four of the kids in my family multiple times----another space book, dale, cuz the door was between worlds. the boy who falls through it to Earth is telepathic, and luckily is found by a cool family that all go out in the woods and stuff together...and eventually the family goes back to his world with him....i found it on amazon used books last year :-)
And, Jenny, I LOVED those orange-red biographies (as a fifth grader, i think); i can still see the shelves devoted to them in the book mobile that visited Mark Twain Elementary School--i remember vividly the contrast of reading about Clara Barton one week, and Ty Cobb the next---i just read them all.
Dale, your book is so funny---reminds me of reading my brothers' books when i ran out of new ones of my own---can't remember the boy character's name right now, but i recall a donut-making machine story that i thought was very funny...
Kim and Cynthia,
I'll look in the library and try to get a John Hartford version of "Gentle on My Mind" for the playlist on Thursday or Friday. Thanks for the idea.
oh, yes, i wanted to especially mention, Dale, what a great set it was to hear jimmy durante, then book of love, then the trouble with poets....a great example of the RH mix....what are the years of those songs? i love that on this station i hear centuries of song!
how about throwing in something from old English choral music one of these days during my wake-up time from 6:30-7? Tallis Scholars?
I read about every one of those biography books too. I wonder about them every now and then, would be fun to get a couple of them, they must be long out of print.
Elinor - I read the Mushroom Planet book(s?) too. I forget the name of the funny little man who lived next door, who ended up having a spaceship hidden in his house or shed.
Dale and Mike, I love your selections this morning - Beatles, Beausoleil, Ray LaMontagne!
A few weeks ago, my boss came into my office and asked me what I listened to - every time she came in, she heard music that she liked! So I set her up to listen to RH on her computer, too. There're six of us out of seven offices in a row that listen to RH. You're a winner here at UW-River Falls!
Like a lot of us, I was very much encouraged to read. Dr. Seuss and Charles Schultz's Peanuts books seemed to be my faves. But, with an introduction from my older brothers, I quickly moved to comic books, which (as you'd expect with a five year old) made a rather strong impression on me. I then discovered 'pulp fiction' or 'dime novels' like The Shadow and Doc Savage. Probably one of the best classes I took in college was Tony Bukoski's Shakespeare class where we really took the time to sit down and give the work the appreciation it deserves. Now, I'm writing my own stories. I'll have my first book published by a small press publisher shortly (when I get done getting the illustrations ready) and I'm tinkering with a new story in a 'crime noir' voice:
You wouldn’t think that a convention hall full of people would be a lonely place. If I told you about thousands of people, all with the same interest, all milling around each other, most of whom know each other by name, that didn’t make eye contact…didn’t say ‘hello,’ didn’t even say ‘excuse me’ when they nudged themselves ahead of their ‘friends’ to get to the front of a line…would you buy it? You probably wouldn’t believe that truth, justice, and good over evil would be reasons for murder. But you’d be dead wrong on all counts.
Dale & Mike - thanks for a great show this morning and also thanks for the great blog topic. It's been delicious to share the memories of my fellow Heartlanders and their earliest favorite books.
Have a great day all!
dale, thank you, thank you! Homer Price----he was so cool!
Yeah! Dave Brubeck! That brings back another set of childhood memories (not about books)...my parents are both musicians and we would sit around the family dinner table listening to Brubeck. My brother and I would get quizzed to see if we could figure out the time signatures of certain songs - some more difficult than others (including one that I think we figured switched from 6/8 to 3/4 time).
Thanks for the Brubeck, Dale.
Oh, love Take Five, got any Ramsey Lewis?
Anna - LOL - I still try to figure out the time signatures of Dave Brubeck songs, as well as Don Ellis. Those musicians must have extremely sophisticated senses of rhythm!
TGinTH -- nice! I hope you'll let us all know when your book is hot off the presses.
Just have to jump in with another comment after hearing Take Five reading Anna's comment. I grew up with Dave Brubeck as the pinnacle of listening pleasure. My dad had a musical flair but was uneducated musically so there were no quizzes but got to meet him and his sons when the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (I think) brought them to town in the early 70's.
A morning full of good memories!
I also read Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. I loved it! I'm now a civil engineer, so I guess it had some influence on me, haha. One of my favorite books as a kid was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I just loved it. I don't remember the first book I ever read, but I know I started early and haven't stopped :) My mom would read books to my brothers and me. I especially remember Watership Down (another favorite) and The Hobbit. Every room in my apartment has a large bookshelf, and I still need more shelves, haha.
I remember the day that I learned to read. I had just received The Cat in the Hat and was looking at the pictures. All of a sudden, I realized that I was reading the words. That moment was like a light bulb in my head and from that moment on (I was about 5) I read everything I could get my hands on.
I also remember the day that my elementary school librarian introduced me to the Betsy and Tacey books. I was reading well above grade level and she knew it. She gave me permission to check out these books when my classmates were primarily checking out picture books. Just another example of the power and influence caring teachers and mentors have in the lives of children.
Such cool memories of books! Mike, I read "Sinking of the Bismarck" in 5th grade, I think. Not sure why -- but I always loved jelly bismarks!
Kay H - I loved "The Forgotten Door." I remember ordering that from Scholastic or something. Sometimes I wanted to go find that Door.
TGiTHat - you're a smart marketer, giving us tantalizing glimpses of your book on a site of readers. Be sure to tell us when it's ready! Have a great day everybody!
I hear the words "Ping" and "Yangtze River" in Captain Kangaroo's voice. No one could read children's literature like he could. Do you ever see kids sitting in front of a t.v. anymore just listening to someone read to them and just watching the pages of a book turning?
The first book that comes to mind is "A Hole is to Dig" by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by a very young Maurice Sendak. I loved Dr. Seuss books, too, but my favorite one was "If I Ran the Zoo." And this is why: in the description of the Tizzle Topped Tufted Mazurka, it says that
"His neck is so long, if he swallows an oat
For breakfast the first day of April they say
It has to go down such a very long way
That it gets to his stomach the fifteenth of May."
The fifteenth of May is my birthday! Great literature aside, one's birthday mentioned in a book is very, very cool to a little kid! I remember my dad reading it to me over and over and over again!
Great topic, Dale, look at all these entries! An early favorite was read by a teacher: The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Warner. And I remember another teacher reading a farming story about "Elmer and Einer" -- can't recall title or author. Anybody recognize it?
One of my favorite memories is a weekly trip in the summer to the old Carnegie library in Storm Lake, IA, to check out things like Curious George, Blueberries for Sal, and many mentioned already. Later, in junior high, I decided to break habit and find a "boy's book", and found a fascinating war submarine story called Up Periscope.
Loved hearing Anna mention Sam Bangs and Moonshine, which I discovered when teaching Kindergarten. And I too found Pooh after college; the humor of A A Milne is wasted on the young!
Anna, Gail, Mark -- I used to try to play some Dave Brubeck for my piano lessons; loved one titled "Eleven Four" and that WAS the time signature. :) Now I find the odd rhythms in Eastern European music when folk dancing -- 9/16, 11/16, 7/4, etc. Intoxicating!
My favorite book as a child (and I still have it today!) is Crictor. Madame Louise Bodot, a French widow, received a "peculiar O shaped box" from her son studying reptiles in Africa and it turned out to be a freindly Boa Constrictor. She named her new pet Crictor and mothered her new pet, knitting him sweaters and bringing him to school with her. Ultimately, he saved her from a burglar and was honored with a big beautiful statue in town. It's a simple story with sweet pictures and a happy ending.
What a great topic today! It's so fun reading everyone's memory bank. I studied children's literature in grad school and thoroughly enjoyed the experience; books like "Tuck Everlasting" and so many more. Now, as RH and MPR supporters, we can all jump on board Kerri Miller's book club and continue the fun; right?
A wonderful author of fun poems for children is Shel Silverstein. I first bought them to read to our own child, but my spouse has thoughtfully gifted them to our son so that he can share them with our grandchildren. Shel did a recording of at least some of them; I especially liked his reading of his poem "Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout," a story of what fate befell the little girl who refused to take the garbage out.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned "The Monster at the End of This Book", featuring lovable Grover from Sesame Street. I just bought this book for my 2 year old, who might not be able to appreciate it as much as her mom and dad....
Garrison used to play "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout" when he hosted the early Morning Show...then he stopped...did it disappear from the library? I love Shel Silverstein and especially the musical version of that poem. thanks, John, for the remembering.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff.
I enjoyed the story and the illustrations although according to Wikipedia the stories were "thought to be politically and morally offensive and can be seen as a justification for colonialism."
I don't know, I was just a kid and I liked the fact that my copy was written in cursive.
Another favorite I first encountered in 5th grade was "Little Britches" by Ralph Moody. Still in print - I bought a copy recently and read it again.
It's the first in a series of books he wrote about his youth. It takes place in the early 1900's near Littleton, Colorado recalling his family's endeavour to start a small ranch. It's a great story about his love of horses and his father.
Dale -- the sight of a Tom Swift Jr Adventure with the original cover art sent me back 30 years this morning! My older brothers had most of the first two dozen books in the series, and I devoured most of them when I was ten or eleven. Victor Appleton had quite a flair for amazing invention names: "Tom Swift and his Ultrasonic Cycloplane," "... his Spectromarine Selector," "... his Electronic Retroscope," etc -- sad to say some of the better titles were changed when they were later given a second life in paperback. These were the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys reading alternative for the future geek set. I started listening much too late to make any suggestions, but next time you're on a literary thread, Moxy Fruvous' "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" would be a perfect addition. Thanks for the great show!
Cynthia, I think the recording Garrison used to play is one of Shel Silverstein reading the poem without music.
I think.
I'll check the library on that one, but I don't recall hearing "Sara Cynthia Sylvia Stout" done as a song.
As someone named Cynthia, it must have been a scary thrill to hear yourself depicted inside that horrifying scenario.
Yes, Dale...and especially since I really hate to take the garbage out...still!
thanks for looking for it, song or reading, doesn't matter, it'll be fun to hear again.
Great memories all!
My brother's and my favorite Dr. Seuss book was On Beyond Zebra, an "alphabet" book.
The one I have by heart:
Floob - Floob is for Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs.
They float in the water like blubbery tubs.
They're no good to eat, you can't cook them like steaks
But they're handy for crossing small oceans and lakes.
Favorites discovered when reading to my kids were the Roald Dahl books, especially The BFG and The Witches. There's a bit of naughtiness in these books that appealed to me and my sons.
I just stumbled onto this page now. "Tom Swift and his Triphibian Atomicar" was the first book my father ever bought me to read on my own, by myself. It was a present of sorts, for "graduating" from Grade 1. I still have the copy he bought me back in 1963, and I still read it from time to time. Years ago, I donated all the other Tom Swift books I had as a child (sometimes when I'm feeling nostalgic, I wish I still had them!) but I hung on to this first one as a keepsake. I always looked forward to a new Tom Swift book at Christmas and my birthday. Later on, I got into the Hardy Boys as well, but Tom Swift was still my fav!
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