Flashback Friday: Books

Even if I am late linking up, I do want to participate in this week's Friday Flashback though I may only be answering a couple of the prompts.

Did you like to read when you were a child? What were your favorite genres, books or series? Did you read books because of the author or because of the title/plot? Did you own many books? Did your school distribute the Scholastic book orders (or some other type)? Did you visit the library often? Was there a summer reading program when you were young, and did you participate? Do you have any particular memories of your school libraries? What were your favorites and least favorites among the classics (the ones high school English teachers assign!)? If you didn't like reading, do you like it more today than you did then?

 My memories are few. I remember most distinctly being drawn into the Elsie Dinsmore series as a teenager. There was some kind of a book exchange program among the missionaries that allowed me to read all if not most of the twenty eight books. My mother had a hard time dragging pulling me away.

Another series, a family favorite from generations back, was Annie Fellows Johnston's  Little Colonel Stories . They were favorites in my mother's home and remain treasures handed down, read and passed on to children and grandchildren. I own three original volumes, tattered, taped, in precarious condition.

Moody Press's Danny Orlis series by Bernard Palmer, was the Christian version of Nancy Drew or such mystery fiction. My brothers and I went through many of those, I believe, though I can only speak for myself. I own a token copy of Danny Orlis makes the team.

When I was younger I read and loved the Susie and Johnny series. The books were very small and thin. In her adventures Susie, if that was her name, always won, of course, but her weapon was to "heap coals of fire" on her enemies by doing good to them. That advice from Romans 12:20 stuck with me. That particular 1940's series, which we owned and my parents bound in a small volume, has since gone missing and is most likely impossible to replace.

A favorite children's classic was Caps For Sale. When I did my student teaching in Argentina, I chose that tale and fully illustrated it for the class and, of course, read it in Spanish.

When I began writing, I thought this would be a brief post. I am surprised to have stirred up so many memories. Mine was a childhood enriched by many books and stories, never distracted by television. We also had recorded dramatized Bible stories and children's programs that we listened to over and over.

I do love books. Perhaps it all started here, at my father's side.