Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
This week's TTT is books with sensory memories.
"These are the books that are linked to very specific memories for you: where you were, what time of year it was, who you were with, what you were eating, what you were feeling, what you were seeing, etc. Ideas include books you read while on vacation, books that you read while you were eating, books you read at work/at a family or social event/on the train or plane, books you’ve buddy read with loved ones, books you read during an emotional time in your life, books you read by the fire, etc."
I struggled with this assignment at first. I read so much! How can I possibly come up with TEN books that remind me of something like that? I remember places I've read, like the beach, or in the cabin on the cruise ship, or at my family's cabin in the woods.
So. Many. Books!
I sure can't tell you what any of them were though. Hmmm...
And then it hit me.
If you've read my About Me page, you know that my love of reading is my mother's legacy.
There lies my top 10.
My mom always encouraged reading. I can't even remember a time in my childhood that my mom didn't read me a bed time story. Except my bedtime stories weren't thin books that you could read in one go. My mom read me the classics.
We had this set of books: Companion Library Children's Classics. Each volume had two stories in it. You flipped it over and the other was on the back. They were published in 1963 and originally, I think, belonged to my Aunt Elizabeth (or Bebe as us kids call her), my mother's older sister. The front of Treasure Island has her name written in it.
I only have three of these books now.
The others have been lost somewhere along the way.
My favorites were Grimm's Fairy Tales, Aesop's Fables, The Wizard of Oz, Call of the Wild, Swiss Family Robinson, The Jungle Book, Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Anderson's Fairy Tales, Alice in Wonderland and Little Women.
I never heard my mom ever complain about having to read one to me. So many nights, she would let me fall asleep in their bed while she read to me until she realized that I had drifted off.
I can still remember lying there on her side of the bed, covers tucked in around me, while she read to me of Bagheera, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Alice, Buck, Jo, and so many others.
I can smell her perfume, hear her voice and the sound of the window A/C unit humming.
My entire childhood can be found inside those books.
I miss her every day.