For the past two summers we have taken you on our travels to Franconia, New Hampshire and Norway through our devotionals. This summer, however, we are going to change the pace with our theme of Summer Reading. Join us as Elisabeth shares her love of reading, her favorite books and how they have formed her. We hope you enjoy this summer series!
I have almost always been surrounded by books. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother put some in the crib along with my toys, just to get me used to them early. The first house I remember living in was one of those double ones of which there are hundreds in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We lived in German-town, in what was probably a cramped house (although to me as a child it seemed large) and there were books in the living room, books in the dining room, books in all of the bedrooms and tall bookcases lining the halls. My father came home at night with a briefcase full of papers and books.
Before I could read much myself I looked at picture books, like everybody else. I remember the lovely women and elegantly handsome men in Charles Dana Gibson’s book of drawings. I went back again and again to an animal book which had a horrifyingly hideous photo of an angry gorilla with teeth bared.
The beautiful little pictures in Beatrix Potter’s books of neatly furred small animals gave me a delicious feeling of order and comfort. My mother read these aloud to me, and how eagerly I stooped with Lucie to enter Mrs. Tiggywinkle’s laundry; or accompanied Simpkin the cat as he made his way through Gloucester’s snowy lanes*. Mr. MacGregor was a big, bad bogeyman to me. Mother read, too, the Christopher Robin stories, and I found myself identifying her with Kanga, my older brother Phil with Pooh, Dave with Piglet, and myself, alas but inescapably, with Eeyore.
* If you would like to hear Elisabeth reading one of her favorite Beatrix Potter books, The Tailor of Gloucester, we invite you to listen using these links:
Christmas Stories: Tailor of Gloucester, Part 1
Christmas Stories: Tailor of Gloucester, Part 2
Continued next week
**Excerpt originally published in All That Was Ever Ours, p. 88-89