Books….

My love of books is well known in our household. Everyone knows I will cling to paper bound novels, and go kicking and screaming into the digital age.

I know every parent doubts the job they are doing now and again, or looks back and wonders if they could have done something differently. With both of the kids’ struggles with school, and distaste for reading for a long time, I often wonder, if I could have done more. A very insensitive person once insinuated that perhaps the kids struggled because I didn’t read to them enough.

We.read.every.night.

So there smarty pants.

Not to mention the weekly trips to the library and home with our totes packed with books, that is another post altogether.

I used to worry because the kids never really seemed to have a favorite book that they brought to me again and again, we always read a lot of different books.

Today, I went to the bookstore with Princess Textsalot to buy a few books for my boss’s new baby.

So, I heard…..”Oh, you have to get this one.” – “Remember this one?”

and “She needs Harold and the Purple Crayon, remember we had all of them!”

“These were the best!”

And, it started to occur to me. We did have favorites. They may have brought me a pile of books every night, but there were always a few consistent ones in there. 

Sandra Boyton was a consistent theme.

They were sing-songy and easy to follow – I realize now, easy for my challenged readers to memorize and follow along, and finish the sentences for me by the time we put them away on the shelf permanently.

We imitated so many of the animals in Eric Carle’s book, I had it memorized for months.

To hear Princess Textsalot excited to look for these favorites for our purchase, gave me hope that maybe I didn’t mess them up forever!

There is a box in the attic full of the books I wanted to save for the next generation. I saved them because they were *my* favorites, but now I realize, they were my favorite because they were the kid’s favorites. It’s a pretty big box. So, I guess I did ok.

But, there are two that will remain in my heart forever and ever….

This is the only I think I remember reading almost every night. The babysitter I had when the kids were very small used it for some of her lessons, and we HAD to get a copy of it for at home. I can still remember a lot of it -

A told B, and B told C, I’ll meet you at the top of the Alphabet Tree.  “whee!”, said D to EFG, “I’ll beat you to the top of the Alphabet Tree"!” -

No, I did not have to look that up.

The best part – THEY REMEMBER. Just when  I think my babies have been replaced by these alien unrecognizable beings at times, THEY REMEMBER.

But this one.

This wonderful, beautiful book….has been the source of one of the phrases I, and I think a lot of parents, continue to use with my kids to this day. We made sure it was included in our gift today.

Throughout this entire book, Little Nut Brown Hare tries to “one up” his Dad on how much he loves him.  Each trick that he can do, and distance he can think of proves how much  more he loves his Dad, than his Dad loves him.

Until Dad gets the better of him on the very last page. I believe it sums up whatever parent feels and no child can know until they parent as well.

Little Nut Brown Hare is finally being tucked into bed, sleepy, and says to Big Nut Brown Hare, “I love you to the moon!” which to him seems like the ultimate measure of love. Until, as he is drifting off, Big Nut Brown Hare, leans down and whispers,

“I love you to the  moon……and back.”