The Coalition of the Swilling

Somewhere Mom has my old vinyl recording of Ferdinand - I need to get it (and the turntable) from her next time I'm down there.

My wife has about 20 Dr. Seuss books in Mandarin.

Hayden loved Tootle and by "loved" I mean, he LOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEED it. So much we had to hide it so that we wouldn't have to read it every. freakin. minute. of the day. How we hated that book and prayed for him to move on to something else.

The other day I found that stupid dog-eared copy of Tootle in a box of discarded books and about burst into tears.

Isn't it amazing how those nasty, goober covered books can do that to you?? All these years and I still have all Ebola's favorite books ~ I refuse to let loose of them. There's a big box of them in the garage that, if I saw a particular cover, I could probably recite each entire text from heart.

My mom teaches preschool. She has all of these books and more from our childhood that she uses in class, including some classic out-of-print books. My faves were Michael and the Steam Shovel, The Little Engine that Could (the original, not that redrawn blasphemy), The Christmas Whale, The Pokey Little Puppy, and Harold and the Purple Crayon. Oh, and Goodnight Moon.

I used to read all of those to my brother and sister when they were small. It's getting dusty in here...

Katharine loved "Tootle" also. How quaint and pre-1960s is its championing of the virtues of self-discipline: "don't go off the rails if you want to grow up to be a Flyer." She also loved a board book called "Messy Baby" (remarkably prescient too, given the state of her room right now!). My personal all-time favorite is "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats.

Good choice! I love Ferdinand the Bull.

I like Hemingway's very similar story about the bull, too, but I can't remember its name.

I loved Tootle's message but damn, it was hard to read. No rhythm to the words, sorta-kinda rhymed but not really, ACK! There was no Seussian flow!

My little ray of sunshine's favorite was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. The wolf was just going to borrow some sugar and sneezed.

Awwwww! Ferdinand! He was my favorite, too!

After all, "if you were a bumble bee and a bull sat on you, what would you do? You would sting him, and that's just what this bee did to Ferdinand."

Thank you, THS, for the wonderful memories!

My parents got me a list of volumes of Childrens Stories collected by the Through Golden Windows series (I think they were in association with Scientifc American) that I absolutely LOVED. They included everything from American history to fables to stories from around the world as well as favorite fairy tales, and biographies and excerpts from classic novels.

My favorites (among many) were : Peregrine White and Virginia Dare, Doctor Dolittle and the Pushmi-pullyu, and a short bio of George Washington. Little Black Sambo is included in this series!!

"The Phantom Tollbooth" - try it, you'll like it. Just try jumping to conclusions after reading it...