The secret life of books
I started reading Charlotte's Web to Mabel last night. She's heard bits of it before, when B was reading it to Dash about a year (or more) ago, and she was concerned that she wouldn't like it. She asked me to promise before we started that the pig doesn't die. I said he didn't.
I didn't mention the spider.
I love reading books I loved to my children; but more than that, I really love having the exact copies I read to pass on to them. There's so much history there. Even if some of it isn't even mine. Case in point, this edition.
I'm pretty sure I bought it at my local second-hand bookshop (the wonderful and sadly now defunct Exchange, in Dalkey). I couldn't tell you when, but I might have been around ten. It probably cost about 25p. It's a 1976 edition, and still has its original pricetag on the back:
I don't know where or what the APCK bookshop was, but I love that it was 49 and a half pence. The halves mattered.
On the inside, the plot thickens, because there's this:
This is a nuns' book!
And further, this, written with one of those invisible-ink pens that didn't show up until you rubbed the other end over where you'd written. I had one of those pens, but Thomas Galin (sp?) is not me.
For some reason, I never wrote my own name in, but I can guarantee that it has been sitting on my bookshelf for longer than it sat in the library of the junior school at Mount Anville or on the shelves of one Thomas Galin. And now it can sit on one of my children's shelves, at least for a while.
******
I hope she doesn't get upset about the spider.
posted by Maud @ 2:39 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
So nice to still have it, I read this to mine recently ( a new copy Im afraid) and they loved it, they took Charlottes death very well, they were just delighted that Wilbur lived and I think the arrival of the baby spiders distracted them. enjoy the trip down memory lane :0)
I read this to my middle two children at the same time. They were devastated when Charlotte died. I love the fact you have the old books I wish I did.
Charlottes Web was one of my absolute favourites when I was little... Don't have my copy sadly! But I DO have the BFG and The magic finger! which has my spindly writing in the front!
I have a few copies like this, too ... not nearly as many as I'd like, given that I grew up an hour away from my current home, and my mother still lives in that house. But my son has even commented on some of the old copies ... and we've tried to trace their history. :) And Charlotte's Web is one of my favorites, too. I hope Mabel enjoys it!
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