My friend retweeted that a Pittsburgh K-8 school has an empty library and an Amazon wish list. I bought The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Know why? Because it kicks ass and more children should read it. Also because EMPTY LIBRARY.This is one of the few times I will admit to being warm and squishy about books. Books you read as a kid have the most impact on you, because your critical faculties are pretty much at zero. This is why if anyone ever insulted The Mud Pony, I'd be like "HEY BUDDY FUCK YOU," even though I'm pretty sure the boy in the story would not be pro-that reaction (by the way, everyone should read The Mud Pony, for it is magical).
I'll occasionally find books I read as a kid and be like "Oh....I remember being REALLY into this picture, but I'm not sure why anymore." Which is sad, right? Because if you're really young and maybe not so awesome at reading yet, you're all over the pictures. And you notice everything about them. Then you get older, and the most attention you give pictures is maybe five seconds.
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| Ah, younger days |
Which reminds me, there's a kickass quote by George Eliot regarding childhood and how a lot of one's love comes from what is experienced during that time:
"We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,—if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn’s hedgerows; the same redbreasts that we used to call 'God’s birds,' because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?"I guess we have the trade off of being able to appreciate good writing and complicated characters and all that, but BEFORE THAT, I'm so glad we have the window where we can just stare at pictures for minutes upon minutes and love the books so much they have to travel with us. Hurrah for childhood.
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