I couldn't limit it to seven, and I couldn't do it on Facebook. So I'm showing them to you here, Paul, the books that shaped my childhood. (A future installment will cover my adult years.)
My mother introduced us to the Carnegie Library in New Castle, Pennsylvania, even before we could read, and it was a sturdy little temple of science and magic and art and learning. I still remember the smell! And the date stamps and the library cards, and the librarians. We got our card as soon as we could write our name.
There was a book that I checked out over and over again, and one day my mother took me to a little bookstore downtown. Bookstores were small and anything but flashy then; mega-bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders were 30+ years into the future. You generally had to order a book and wait and wait for it. I didn't know such a thing was possible, and my mother had me bring my savings and we ordered the book, for my very own, with my own money.
It was a new kind of power, that you could buy and own a book – knowledge. It's still a thrill to buy a good book, but nothing will equal how I felt buying this one. Interesting that Japanese origami was unknown in our world then.
Then there were the little Golden Science Guides that had a whole row on our shelves. You could learn anything from them! Zoology was my favorite, although Stars and Rocks & Minerals were often my bedtime reading.
I also had this somewhat horrid little book, which I loved. It kindled the spark of learning about science for me.
I was something of a challenge to my Dad (weren't we all?). He loved sports (he played for Clemson and Army), and hoped for a son to share them with. Who was my younger brother, Kirk, lucky for them both. But Dad was a multifaceted, caring man, and found ways to connect. This was under the Christmas tree in 1961, when I would have been 8. I read every story, Icarus, Oedipus, Beowulf, Roland, Sigfried! And the Provensen illustrations have made it a valuable classic today. I still go back to these tales.
I also learned the glories of poetry from an old book of my mother's. It's very fragile today, but the poems themselves are treasures for the ages, and the pictures are from the 1920's, the heyday of illustration. Click through the photos.
Again, my poor dad. For much of my childhood I was convinced he was indifferent to me at best. But it's his handwriting on the flyleaf of this Robert Frost collection for children. It's one of my top 10 books of all times, with its absolutely exquisite woodcuts (click the gallery to see examples), and each poem has a place in my heart.
My sister had a large Golden Book Of Biology, with beautiful illustrations by an up-and-coming artist named Charlie Harper, whose work Thea and I love and collect today. My sister's book would also be quite the collector's item today. My copy is an old smaller library binding that Thea and the kids found for me years ago. I learned my Darwin and Mendel side-by-side with vibrant art. Click on the gallery to see all the illustrations.
Like all kids in the 50's, I loved Disney stories. I never knew a time without Disney animation, but eventually I began to appreciate the genius of Walt Disney himself. Our uncle Art Cruickshank was a faraway legend to us; he and Aunt Mary Jane and their boys lived in La Crescenta with a swimming pool, and he sent us animation cels (which we destroyed) and free passes to Disneyland which of course were never used. I still have many of the beautiful Disney books from those years, but I checked this book out at the library and memorized every page. It's the 1958 edition of The Art Of Animation, a treasure trove of Disney's work, pre-Poppins. If you can find it at all today, it's worth hundreds of dollars; there's one on eBay right now signed by Mr. Disney for $4995. But I like it because it has a picture of my uncle whom I eventually met and got to know and swam in his pool, Oscar-winner Art Cruickshank.
I don't know if music books are legit for this, but this pint-sized one certainly shaped my life. My sister and I fought over it so much Mom bought a second one. That's probably not gold-star parenting, but it solved the problem. It's quite little.
In the back it has other obscure Sherman Brothers songs, like this one which hadn't hit the 1964 World's Fair yet.
And then there was Mom's Fireside Book Of Folk Songs, with illustrations by our old friends the Provensens. I played it through from cover to cover and learned a literal world of songs.
There were five children who played piano, and I cannot begin to tell you how much we treasured the Rodgers & Hammerstein "Songs We Sing" book. It has shaped my music sensibility to this day. My brother Nels had it in Wisconsin, and graciously gave it to me at my request. (OK, I begged.) Again, played from cover to cover, and not a dud anywhere. And "The Sound Of Music" wasn't even part of the canon then. I could have included many more illustrations; click on the gallery to see them all.
For those of you not old enough to remember the Time-Life Science Library, you missed a fascinating gateway to learning about our universe, replete with illustrations and quotes and anecdotes. Aimed at all ages, but hit a bullseye in my heart. We had friends who had them all, so I could read them at my leisure. I loved the Mathematics book the best. You could get the first one for $1, and cancel before the next one arrived a month later (for maybe $4.95 plus postage?). Since the first book was Mathematics, my parents, who strectched their money and loved a bargain, made me happy for one dollar. I learned about Einstein, Newton, and Gödel, and many mind-stretching concepts, copyright 1963.
it wasn't Disney but T. H. White who fired my heart with his modern-medieval tales of King Arthur. Sorry about the cheesy movie tie-in cover (although it's great artwork by Hollywood poster legend Bob Peak). Not sorry about the telling of the tale; Mr. White adds a moral twist to the story that has been imbedded in my heart ever since.
At some point, I found my parents' set of Mary O'Hara's books "My Friend Flicka" and "Thunderhead". To this day I hate the Roddy McDowall movie – no boy I knew wanted to be anything like Roddy McDowall. But although Ms. O'Hara's books are thought of as horse stories, to me they're clearly boy stories. Not only that, the boy had a layered and conflicted life with his high-achieving West Point graduate father. Hmmm.
Anyway, I loved Ken's adventures in the Wyoming and Colorado mountains, and the wild fierceness of the land and the horses. The stories were sad and traumatic, but also explosively happy, and awakened my stirring young heart to the idea of going out West. Which I did, but that's another story. Today I would have a hard time reading them, but they are no less beloved with time. Definitely a huge influence. I still want a horse.
Which brings me to a book which may be the last, but is in no way an ending. If Mary O'Hara gave me ideas, the National Geographic book "America's Wonderlands" gave me data. We got it from the library and eventually owned it, and I pored over maps and photos of every national park and monument. It helped me decide that my life had to happen in the Rocky Mountains, and in 1971 at the end of childhood I made my way out to Montana for four glorious years. I don't know what happened to our book, but when I married Thea Clay six years later, she had her own copy. It may be a random universe, but I put great stock in such things. We still have the book and each other.
Oh, there are many, many more beloved books from those days, even in our house. But that will do for now. Stay tuned for the books that filled the adult years...