Thanks to having a one year old in the house, I've had the pleasure of re-visiting books I loved when I was young. Chief among my favorites was Eloise, the story of a girl who lives in The Plaza with her English nanny. The story is loosely based on the antics of a young Liza Minelli. Suffice to say, this exceptionally quirky girl manages to terrorize everyone in the Plaza. I remember spending time just pouring over the illustrations, done in black & white with pink details. The illustration of her bedroom alone kept me happily engaged, so much detail to absorb!
When I was quite young, I kept all my books in a closet with a french door that had a white muslin curtain. I loved that closet. I would open the french door and sit on the floor indian style and look at my books. So a love of closets started at a young age. With my youngest, I decided to have fun with her closet and make it into a lovely spot, instead of purely practical. The photo isn't very good, but you get the general gist. A curtain for a bit of privacy and to play house, shelves for toys and, of course, books. The interior is wallpapered in a print that is a simple silhouette of trees in green. A white branch hangs from the rod with green butterflies attached. I think it may be my dream closet.
Of course, there is already an edition of Eloise waiting for Ellie. Someday, I hope she will get as much joy from a simple book and a space just for her as I did as a child.
I would love to hear what your favorite book was as a child, maybe it will even help me discover another great favorite.
4 comments:
Oh so many books to love! My recent favorite is Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. I love pretending to be of "infinite-resource-and-sagacity", and each of the girls is my "Best Beloved". The closet is dreamy, I'd love to play there for a few hours.
here's the difference between creative, poetic people like you, and type A people like me:
just today i told skip that i absolutely love the hundreds of books that are on our kids' shelves. and then i told him how badly i wanted to alphabetize them.
-sigh-
we love the mrs. piggle wiggle series. also skippyjohn jones is hilarious if you can muster up a good mexican accent.
noe just got a new eloise book the other day... i think it was one about going to hollywood.
I used to love Amelia Bedelia books. Always made me laugh, even as a small child.
Oh! I love closets, too! I used to sit in my closet with a flashlight and read books because I wanted to be like the movies where kids read under the covers, but I hated being under the covers! Then, when I was in jr. high and high school, we would go into my parents walk-in closet and I would tell scary stories to the younger kids. Such good memories, I just wish I could remember the stories!
That closet is magazine worthy! How can we get that published?
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