Literary Love Affairs, Part I: Or Why I Talk to Squirrels

San Diego Momma’s second PrompTuesday of 2009 is a doozy. She’s asking us what our favorite book is and why.

Book. Did you catch that? Singular.

I balked. I panicked. I told her it was like having a lifelong nymphomaniac choose her favorite lover. Completely, utterly, impossible. Then I closed my browser window and went about my business. But the question kept nagging. I thought about how seemingly insurmountable tasks can be made manageable when broken down into smaller tasks. It would be perfectly legitimate to break one’s life as a reader down into small pieces and select a favorite book for each phase of one’s life, wouldn't it? Yes. Hence this first installment of what may be a completely tedious exercise in literary navel-gazing. Let's call this:

Part One: The Dr. Seuss Years

My mother got me started early in my book addiction by signing me up for one of those children’s book-of-the-month clubs. I remember being so excited every time one of the flat cardboard boxes arrived. The very first one was Dr. Seuss’s One Fish, Two Fish. I liked Dr. Seuss well enough, but his books were never entirely satisfying to me. He may be a national institution, but let’s face it, there’s not a whole lot going on there in terms of story. I had pretty much outgrown the Dr. even before Kindergarten.

Ingeniously, these book clubs send out books of ever-increasing complexity to keep pace with a child’s anticipated reading level. When then the actual story books with plotlines and conflict and only one illustration for every two pages started arriving in the mailbox, they were a revelation. Now those were the books that hooked me. Those were the books that fired my imagination and fed my pretend games. Those were the books like Miss Suzy (Miriam Young and Arnold Lobel).

I know. You have probably never heard of it, and it’s a crying shame. It’s marvelous. You see, there’s this little squirrel. She wears an apron and lives in a tree. She is house-proud, very much like my mother, and keeps a tidy little home there. One day, some mean, nasty red squirrels invade her home and throw her out. She runs away into the attic of the house nearby. Stored in the attic, are a brigade of toy soldiers and a perfectly squirrel- sized doll house. She befriends the soldiers and takes up residence in the doll house. Finally, she tells the soldiers about her old home in the tree, which she misses terribly, and they decide to help her get it back.

I loved, loved, loved that book. It had everything my little 5 year old heart could want: a fluffy, anthropomorphic squirrel, a doll house, a mysterious attic, and the kind of righting of wrongs that my overdeveloped sense of justice often demands of literature even to this day. (More on that in subsequent installments.)

There came an afternoon, when I was in Junior High, when my mother suggested giving all of my “kid’s books” to my nephew. I thought about it for a few seconds, as shocked by the suggestion as by my own reaction to it -- books being so very precious, after all. It took a moment, but I decided that my little baby nephew was at least as precious and absolutely deserving of my beloved books. I answered that, yes, he could have everything EXCEPT a Child’s Garden of Verses, and Miss Suzy. Miss Suzy I was perfectly willing to read to him myself, but she would forever remain indisputably mine.

I have her still.