Childhood nostalgia poll

[rachelmanija]

Please reminisce, fondly or not, about any of these, or other books read in childhood, especially if they seem to have, deservedly or undeservedly, vanished from the shelves. I'd love to hear about non-US, non-British books, too.

[Poll #1720139]

Comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I read the Betsy books over and over again; also Betsy-Tacy, by a different author.

The Lenski books are surprising -- her own doll-like illustrations really belie the serious content. I remember in STRAWBERRY GIRL, the heroine, the daughter of migrant workers, had her mother make a new dress for her of carefully-saved feedsacks. Then she proudly showed up at school for a birthday party only to find out she wasn't invited, and was mocked for her dress.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I know. And in one of them, someone was permanently weakened by rheumatic fever, and I pronounced it wrong, and, after my mother corrected me with some amusement, she explained about why I'd never heard of it or known anybody in real life who had it -- it was because when we got strep throat, we had antibiotics that would clear it up in a couple of days, and that was a thing that happened with untreated strep, before antibiotics.

She explained about diphtheria, when Laura and Almanzo had it in The First Four Years, and all the childhood diseases they had in all the Betsy books (measles, mumps, German measles, the works) and the Great Brain books (another series!) and polio, too. She grew up pre-vaccine and lived through polio scares, and all I'd ever dealt with was chicken pox. I grew up thoroughly respecting the powers of vaccination.

The 1918 flu epidemic was very vividly in the All-Of-A-Kind Family books. I wish I'd thought to ask my grandmother about that, before she died. She would have been five, then.