I love books! I don’t remember loving the books we read at school, but I was passionate about the books I read at home. My mother set an example by always spending part of each day reading. I can still remember when she presented me with my first chapter book. I was seven, and in the car on the way home from school, she presented me with a copy of The Secret in the Old Attic, number 21 in the Nancy Drew series, by Carolyn Keene. I told my mother I couldn’t read it, but she assured me I was ready. As we rounded Park Vista Drive onto East Eighth Street, I started the first chapter and discovered a whole new world!
Today I am responding to a Shutter Sisters daily prompt, books, which I find much more interesting than Starts with O, my daily challenge topic for today. I chose books from five series that I loved as a child. In addition to Nancy Drew , there was another girl detective that I grew to love even more- Judy Bolton. Judy solved mysteries, sometimes made mistakes (she wasn’t perfect like Nancy), grew older and married Peter, who I think was a lawyer and maybe an FBI agent. I then discovered the Maida books. I don’t know many people who have read this series, but it was a wonderful story of a little girl whose millionaire father, Buffalo Westabrook, buys her a little neighborhood shop to run. She soon makes friends with all the children in the neighborhood, who become the characters in all the books to follow. In each book, the children have a new place to live and a new enterprise, such as Maida’s Little Zoo and Maida’s Little School. I wanted to live that life!
I am pretty sure I read almost all the books in those three series, in addition to the Happy Hollisters, the shoes series (Ballet Shoes, Theatre Shoes), the Walter Farley horse series, and the Bobbsey Twins. I read an entire crate of the Bobbsey Twins on a road trip to Yellowstone, Glacier, and Canada when I was nine. And on that same trip, I read Little Women, probably the favorite book of my childhood. I have read that one over and over, identifying with Jo, who was a writer, which I now wanted to be as well. I was surprised to find as I grew up that almost all girls who read that series identified with Jo.
The other favorite series of my childhood was Anne of Green Gables. It had been my mother’s favorite as well. In fact, she had told me some of the events of the book as stories when I was younger- her favorite part being the time Anne accidentally dyed her hair green.
In case you want to know what I’m reading now- I just finished The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (a classic I had never heard of- I loved it!) and am engrossed in Wild by Cheryl Strayed (Oprah’s first pick for her new book club). On my kindle waiting to be read is Broken Harbor by Tana French, and on my coffee table is the next Maisie Dobbs (my favorite adult series), Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear. And I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel to Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, coming out September 18. Yes, I do love books!
melinda anderson photography 
I have many of the same memories as you do. My mother was an avid reader and a member of Book of The MOnth Club. I also read all of the Nancy Drew mysteries, The Bobbsey Twins, and Cherry Ames, Student Nurse. (my adult life experience as a nurse was NOT Cherry Ames!) My first “grown Up” book, a gift from my mother was “Gone With The Wind”. This remained the lifetime favorite for both of us. I often acted out as Scarlett! Today I just finished “The Orchardist”, which I highly recommend. Also “The Bakers Daughter”, pretty good, and “The Shoemaker’s Wife”, also okay. Waiting on my kindle are, “Tigers in Red Weather’, “The Night Circus”, “In The Shadow of the Banyan”, and “The Woman in White”. Reading has always been a passion in my life. My mom was reading a Phyllipa Gregory book when she died. She had read everyone of her novels.
that stack — so familiar from my bookshelf too. All you’ve written — feel as if I was there. Thank you, Melinda, for bringing these alive again!
Your writing is as crisp and in focus as your photographs. Your words took me back in time to the world of my childhood books. We read so many of the same books and continue to do so! I just finished Wild and loved it. Thank you for the gifts of daily photos and daily writings.