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

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

There....there are more than one Doll book? (gapes in happy shock)

I'd forgotten about A Dolls House but I know I have it around here somewhere. I remember that wicked Marchpane, and sweet little Apple...oh, that was a wonderful book. I didn't know it was a series. I will have to find those immediately.

Since we're talking about books that were extremely old when I was quite young, anyone remember "The Surprise of Their Lives?" (by Hazel Hutchins Wilson, per Amazon) There were a brother and sister whose little sister got scarlet fever, and they couldn't go home, and they had to stay at the nasty overly strict elderly neighbor's house, and somehow they accidentally stowed away on a cruise ship...

Oh, and what about Jane's Father (by Dorothy Keely Aldis, per Amazon)? Jane's father was very silly--I think they wound up putting his head in a birdcage at one point. And calomel was the cure-all, which confused me because I'd never heard of it. I thought it must be a precursor to St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin.

I liked Carolyn Haywood's Betsy books too, though it was odd because they started out way before my time and suddenly there was a time warp and they became quite contemporary to my mid-70s childhood.

This happened with Beverly Cleary too--Henry Huggins was a 50s kid with a coonskin cap watching Davy Crockitt and Ramona was a 3-year-old enamored with a Howdy Doody analog. And then when Ramona starts kindergarten she's a 70s kid, and then her father loses his job in the 70s recession and her mother goes back to work around the time my mother does the same...it was sort of confusing.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I remember the Ramona time warp, and Beezus wanting a Dorothy Hamill haircut. My mother had a Dorothy Hamill haircut. it wasn't possible for me with my curly hair, and I wanted it long so I could have braids like Laura's, but I lacked the patience to grow it out, especially since having it brushed HURT. My aunt sewed me a calico gown and a sunbonnet, though. I adored her for that.

I don't remember the Betsy time warp - I suspect my school library didn't have the new ones.

There weren't any more Rumer Godden books about Tottie, but there were other dolls! There were several about the Japanese dolls, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. Miss Plum arrived in her own book, and so did the boy, Little Peach. MOAR DOLL BOOKS.

Another marvelous doll book, NOT by Rumer Godden, is "Hitty: Her First Hundred Years." Get the original, not the later abridged version pitched at younger kids.

I didn't read the two other books you mentioned, but OMG CALOMEL. I only learned about that through Heinlein and that it was MERCURY and TOXIC and used as a laxative. Scary!

The archaic medicines I remember were the quinine in Little House on the Prairie for "fever and ague" which was malaria, and the belladonna Beth took for her fever in Little Women, which I realized years later when working in a natural foods store had to be HOMEOPATHIC belladonna, since homeopathy was very popular at the time (and way safer than calomel, if it came to that) and in homeopathy, belladonna is the go-to remedy for fever with red face! Oh, and in the British books, there always seemed to be calf's-foot jelly and beef tea for invalids. I've figured out the calf's-foot jelly, but even with the help of historical cookbooks, I haven't quite sorted out what distinguishes beef TEA from beef BROTH. It's so weird!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Hitty! I was kind of meh about a lot of the classic girly books -- too much dull domestic stuff, not enough adventure for my tastes; and I wasn't all that into dolls as a kid (if they'd been as customizable and posable as my current BJD collection, it would have been another story...) -- but I really enjoyed Hitty. I was already a bit of a history buff, so I think it was that sense of the depth and passage of time that made that one work for me.

I haven't quite sorted out what distinguishes beef TEA from beef BROTH. It's so weird!

My understanding is that "tea" is just made by simmering boneless meat, with only a bit of salt of flavor, while "broth" is made by simmering meaty bones and may or may not contain additional spices and/or aromatics for flavor: this 1917 cookbook goes into some detail on the beef juice/tea/extract/broth/soup variations.