Growing up I loooooved trips to the library, and we made them frequently. I can hardly remember a time when there wasn’t a pile of picture books coloring up the family room somewhere. On our visits, Mom and my sister and I would all pick out a certain number each–mom always finding the best and most brightly illustrated stories in the bunch. We would spend lots of time between the stacks, carefully selecting the perfect titles and carrying them around with us like treasures in nearly unmanageable mounds. We read every single one.

Some of my very favorite stories are still tucked into the piles we grew familiar with when we were young. There were always new ones, of course, but some came home with us again and again, favored and loved and savored with every turn of the page. And we’ve worked to acquire some of those titles over the years, some still in print and others, hard to come by. Now, I wish I had them all to line on bookshelves for a someday-reader in this house. The world of children’s literature is a marvelous one to this day, but I miss the collections–the quality and integrity and depth of so many stories I recall from younger days.

I’m thinking about this tonight because things in our little blue house as of late have reminded me of a story by one our family’s favorite author/illustrator duos, Don and Audrey Wood. A husband and wife pair, their tales are magnificent, their illustrations, brilliant. We never went home without a Wood book in tow, and they are some of my favorites to this day. A pictorial feast:

and my inspiration for this evening…

Aren’t they wonderful?! If I wrote about all of the children’s books I’ve grown to love, I’d easily have a post a day until the baby gets here. I am taken with storytelling, especially when the author and the illustrator marry their talents so beautifully together (and/or are married, which seems to have worked in the Wood’s case:). I can’t wait to have bookshelves lined with old and new favorites for the peanut…we will read and read and read together someday soon. And we’ll pay frequent visits to the library–oh, will we visit the library! It was one of my favorite parts of growing up.

Back to “napping” for now, for me and baby and Jason and Kruger and our little blue house. We are a sleepy and recovering bunch, and we nap oh-so-well 🙂

goodnight,

mm