BlogHer - Remembering Childhood Comforts - Comments

Miss Scrimmage's sounded awful

sassymonkey — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:15:00 -0600

But if you could be there with someone like Cathy it might not have been too bad. Was she the one with the pet skunk or was that one of the other girls?

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I loved Encyclopedia Brown

sassymonkey — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:13:44 -0600

I had a bunch of those books. I didn't do so well with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. I always felt like I was missing the better story. I didn't help that I had a habit of hitting story ends soon either.

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Ramona!

sassymonkey — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:12:02 -0600

Am I dating myself or do you remember when they did the Ramona television show?

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A Tree Growns in Brooklyn

sassymonkey — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:08:04 -0600

I've read it, I know I have. And I know I really liked it. Can't remember a single thing about it.

I only had an abridged copy of Little Women and once I found out it was an abridged copy I was horribly disappointed with it. lol

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I love the MacDonald Hall series too!

RenaissanceTrophyWife — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:28:13 -0600

I was all set on going to Canada for boarding school when I was little... how awful would Miss Scrimmage's have been, though? Cathy totally cracked me up.

RTW

http://renaissancetrophywife.wordpress.com

Choose Your Own Adventure

mochadad — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:21:29 -0600

I loved the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. These books placed me right in the middle of the action and allowed me to make choices that lead to victory or demise. They were exciting and really fueled my love for reading. I also liked "Encyclopedia Brown." I enjoyed solving the mysteries. My kids love reading because of the example I set for them. The bookstore and library are two of their favorite places.

Mocha Dad

www.mochadad.com

I Did That Too!

Michellesamom — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:49:41 -0600

My favourite was Ramona Quimby Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. I think we had a special bond her and I... My mom bought it for me when I got sick in front of the class in grade 1 and I think I read every Ramona book after that. Later I read the Narnia books when I had the flu. I hated being sick, but a book always did make it better... well, that and my mom's Chicken soup ;)

Great Post!

Michelle writes at Michelle's Blog

Louisa May Alcott

Denise — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:43:22 -0600

I read the Little Women series a lot when I was sick. When I was older, it was Betty Smith - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Joy in the Morning, Maggie-now etc...

I wasn't sick a whole lot, though. Darn it.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

Remembering Childhood Comforts

sassymonkey — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:12:09 -0600

I unfortunately have a lot of memories of being sick as a child. If there was a cold or flu I caught it. As much as I hate being sick there were comforts there as well. My mother would make soup. I'd eat plain toast and drink ginger ale while watching cartoons. Mostly though, I remember sick days as being an opportunity to stay in bed, or at least on the couch under a pile of blankets, and read. Yep, sick days were made immeasurably better by the addition of book.

I've slowly been adding books to my collection that disappeared over the years, books that I used to read when I wasn't feeling well. I'm not sure how they ever managed to leave my collection. One of my favourite series to read was Gordon Korman's MacDonald Hall series. There's no way that you could feel too bad when Bruno and Boots were making mischief. They would make me smile and laugh, but not too much but it was difficult since as Noha at Meet My Shadow says, the series is "bloody genius". Sometimes I needed something a bit more mellow than the antics at MacDonald Hall, or more correctly, I had to stop laughing and acting like I was enjoying myself quite so much. Now I really don't care whether someone hears me laughing when I'm sick or not. I figure if I can manage to laugh that's a good thing because it means I haven't completely lost my voice.

I tend to turn a lot to favourite childhood books when I'm sick. In addition to Bruno and Boots I also tend to read Mildred Lawrence's Peachtree Island. It's an endearing story of an orphaned girl who goes to stay with her uncle on his peach farm. She tries to every "as good as a boy" so that he'll keep her. I dont' know what happened to my original copy of it but I sure was happy when I tracked down a copy of it on eBay earlier this year. If I'm not too sick I love to revist L.M. Montgomery's works, particularly The Story Girl. This is what Elizabeth Kathryn Miller has to say about it:

One could read the book for the little stories alone. But there is a larger story throughout, one of the personal growth of all the children. They learn about the importance of forgiveness, the silliness of grudges, the lost days given to fear.

Sometimes I wish I still had the old Sweet Valley High and Baby-Sitters Club books that long ago found another home. It feels like they'd be good books to read when I'm sick. Although I have been reading The Baby-Sitters Club Revisited Blog for awhile now and I think that perhaps they are not books that quite stand the same test of time.

I suppose the part of the reason these books call to me when I'm sick is because they remind me when I was a little girl. My mother is not going to come tuck me in with a cold glass of ginger ale and a damp cloth for my forehead. In reading these books though, I'm nurturing that same part of myself. And I won't lie, it makes the sneezing and coughing more tolerable.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey is nursing a cold and trying hard not to lose her voice. She blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.