04/24/2025
Happy world book day! I started reading very young and books were always my friends. I learned so much from Raggedy Ann, Pippi Longstocking(coolest chick ever! She had a pet monkey and could lift her horse🤯), and the book I borrowed from the school library every chance I got, ‘Where The Sidewalk Ends’.
With books, I learned how to have lots of good fun that is funny, that if you’re not good to your teacher, she may turn into a witch; you can’t eat bread and jam every day; if you don’t take the trash out, it will reach from New York to the Golden State and that if a troll wants to eat you just tell him that you have a brother that’s much bigger.
But seriously, reading helped me stay true to myself when, because of intense bullying, I had to make a decision whether to change what I was to fit in or remain and be ridiculed. I chose the ladder because I have books to cushion the blow. But not literally because the sharp edges on books hurt.
Here are a few of the books which had a huge impact in my life.
1. Where the sidewalk ends- “ I cannot go to school today said little Peggy and McKay. I have the measles and the mumps, a gash or rash and purple bumps… That girl was good!
2. The shy little girl.- the illustrator shared my name. Loved the artistry, liked the story.
3. Proving your serve.- studied the book to become a camp counselor my senior summer. Just remember, genuine, humility, absolute honesty, and transparent humanity.
4. Wynken, Blynken & Nod- every night last story for my daughters. I can still recite it from memory.
5. The Blue Jays dance.- way before the book ‘Go The F To Sleep’ was even conceived, there was this book. Helped me understand raising children wasn’t just growth and happiness.
TO BE CONTINUED
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!