The particular edition of The Hobbit that your father read to you when you were a kid. That picture book retelling of Rapunzel with the illustrations you could sink into. The anthology whose pages you pored over for hours.
That book.
The book that is so much more than the words. It’s the story and the cover and the illustrations. It’s the heft and the shape, the feel of the paper, the smell of the pages. It’s the book that’s inextricably wrapped up in your memories–the sound of your father’s voice, the slant of the afternoon sun on the back of your neck, the day you first brought it home from the store or opened its pages.
For me, one of those books is The Faber Book of Modern Fairy Tales, edited by Sara and Stephen Corrin. My copy of it–obtained when I was about ten–is at my parents’ house in Karachi and very much out of my reach. So when I saw a used copy of it–with the same cover!–on sale on Amazon marketplace for a mere $5 and change, I jumped at the opportunity to reclaim a bit of my childhood.
These are no retellings of conventional fairy tales, nor are they riffs and twists of them. They are fairy tales, featuring questing young men and faithful woodcutter’s daughters, charmed lives and magical rings, visions and transformations. A squirrel turns into a woman, a young man claps thunder from his hands, a good little girl’s utterances are accompanied by a fall of jewels from her lips. Youths and maidens traverse a landscape of deep forests and vast oceans and on to the edges of the world. These fairy tales are modern in the sense they were written within the past hundred or so years ago, and thus suit today’s sensibilities better. Some are wry or comedic, others poignant and moving, all are enchanting.
It’s hard to pick favorites, but here are a few of the delightful tales hidden between the covers of this anthology:
“The Prince and the Goose Girl” by Elinor Mordaunt: A fearsome, tyrannical prince meets his match in an independent, fearless goose girl–and learns to love along the way.
“A Wind from Nowhere” by Nicholas Stuart Gray: When Tamsin meets a magical talking broomstick, she is thrust into a twilight world of witches and familiars and dark revels. This story made my heart ache.
“A Harp of Fishbones” by Joan Aiken: Nerryn has always been different from the other people in her village. After getting help from an unexpected source, Nerryn makes a harp of fishbones and sets off over the mountains.
“The Great Quillow” by James Thurber: When a giant comes to his town, it’s up to Quillow the toymaker to get rid of him.
… and many more.
Which book is that book for you? What have you done to reclaim a bit of your childhood?
Oh, it sounds lovely! I keep looking for my THAT books. There were three, and I have yet to find them. 🙁
What do you remember about them?
The first one was all color illustrations and held the story about Siegfried and the salt mill wherein he came as a suitor, did his marvelous deeds, there was a treasure room, and the story ended with a salt mill at the bottom of the sea. It also had the stories about the little man that I mentioned.
The second one had black and white with bits of orange color illustrations and contained the story “Tom Tit Tot,” which is basically a slightly different version of Rumpelstiltskin.
And I don’t remember if “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and the story about the three brothers, of which the youngest came into a land with a czar, czarina, and daughter and introduced them to salt, which he had picked up in a previous adventure, were included in book 2 or 3, which is the fuzziest one in my head. I remember the illustrations of book 3 did not match, but it’s still hard to sort out just yet.
They were all three coffee-table type books, fat and tall and beautiful.
I love how *that* book is so often a collection of fairy or folk tales. 🙂
That first one sounds like a version of The Kalevala to me. That’s a major myth in Finnish mythology. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Mine was a collection of fairy tales with glorious illustrations, very detailed with a lovely color palette, some rich hues and pastels, but nothing garish. I know it had Donkeyskin and The Little Mermaid (the *real* version). It was a tall book, but I don’t think it was overly thick. I had it when I was about 10, so around 1985.
I read a lot of books in ebook format these days but I think the tactile and visual feast that is a lovely illustrated anthology is so worth it to have in physical form!
I still own my childhood books, and there are several that are extremely special to me. I adore the My Book House series for both the stories and the illustrations. Never tire of looking at those and dreaming! And I had my Captain Kitty children’s book that is still extremely precious. (Hopefully, I did that link right! The pictures are so cute!)
However, there are two books from the school library I used to read over and and over, and I have been searching for them ever since. One I’m pretty sure was called “Volcano!” and was about the Paricutin volcano, and I seem to recall the author was named Gaunt or Gant, but I haven’t turned it up. The other book, alas, is a complete mystery. I know neither the title nor the author. It was a story about a Roman boy who learned from his Greek slave about life. The slave’s name was Demetrius, and the boy was temporarily blinded when he tried to save Demetrius, but other than the look of one particular illustration about papyrus and some memories of the plot, it’s just all a childhood memory. This is my *that* book that I want to find again. I’ve scoured used bookstores, queried librarians and book store owners… nobody knows it so far. But someday, I think I will randomly find it in an antique store’s book section, just mixed in with some old books! At least I hope so! 😀
I hope you find it, too! My first thought on reading your description was, I wonder if the homeschooling community knows about this book. We tend to be rather rabid about historical fiction. 😀
I was lucky to have re-found a couple of library books when searching on the ‘net, mainly because I remembered enough of their titles. I haven’t bought them, but it’s nice to know that I *could* if I wanted to.
Mine were Caps for Sale and The Monster At the End of the Book. I have both and read them to my girls often, always with a wash of memories.
The Monster At the End of the Book
I love that title! I have to go check it out now. 🙂
Favorite book ever!! And my girls love it too.
I hung on to my childhood favorites with both hands, so I haven’t really had to search for much. A few do stand out, tho.
World Tales by Idres Shah: for about two decades, this held my only copy of the Scottish legend Childe Rowland. (Then I found one more without the pretty picture.) He’s my favorite medieval knight bar none. He goes off to rescue a princess who’s been stolen and hidden away like so many others… but the princess wasn’t some stranger he’d never met whose hand in marriage would win him a kingdom. She was his beloved sister, who’d he’d grown up and would rather die rescuing than lose. For me, that made all the difference in the world. {SMILE}
Another was The Jade Ring by Carolyn Keene, a first-run Dana Girl mystery by the pen name usually used for Nancy Drew. It was my youngest aunt’s, and kept at my grandmother’s along with a handful of 1960’s Nancy Drews and a smattering of early Bobsey Twins. I let the Nancy Drews go without a tear. Then my cousin – that aunt’s daughter – wanted the Bobsey Twins. I reluctantly let them go, but demanded that I be allowed to keep The Jade Ring. I don’t know if my cousin agreed, or never wanted it, but I still have it. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
I remember the Dana Girls! My sister had an anthology of some kind that featured Nancy Drew and the Dana Girls (maybe along with the Hardy Boys?). It might’ve been of mysteries they solved together, but my memory of it is fuzzy. Only your mention of the Dana Girls brought it back.
I remember seeing some mysteries that Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys solved together. I don’t remember seeing any with the Dana Girls involved, too. I was really more interested in them. {Smile}
It’s interesting what will jog a memory, isn’t it? I’ll go years without thinking about something, then suddenly something reminds me…. {SMILE}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
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