and a sentimental afternoon…
Today I had a huge sort out of our enormous library of family books, now that our children are grown up.
Bag after bag lined up in the hall waiting to be taken to the charity shop.
It brought unexpectedly powerful feelings, as the years fell away and I sat on the floor leafing though the books we had shared. Rather too many were put back on the shelves. Not all of them revered classics or handsome hardbacks, in fact lots of manky cheap books still with faint evidence of toast crumbs, some not even terribly good, but oh so loved.
I wonder if you can’t be truly sure which the treasures are going to be until much later: some bring it all back, the books that were read time after time, for hours and hours, in companionable cosiness; some I can’t even remember at all.
But if you’ve really laughed together,
and really cried,
these are treasures I cannot bear to give away.
Oh I loved Little Tim, and Lucy and Tom were very special books. I remember last year reading on another blog about Lucy and Tom’s Christmas and asking my mum if she still had it, she did but didn’t offer it up to me so I guess she wanted to keep a hold of it too should my sisters have children as well. I bought a second hand copy back in March. I love reading our old picture books back at my mums and sharing them with my little boy. I’m sure you didn’t put too many back on your shelves!
It sounds as if your mum is hanging on to her own treasures just like mine did – I remember my children visiting their grandma and loving the books she had kept, but if they wanted to take one the answer was often no!
Mum would love to bring back the Lucy and Tom books, would that be a good idea do you think?
Oh this is so me. So many simple baby flip books I can’t bear to part with. Memories of little fat feet kicking in delight as the card pages turn.
Hello Gemma! Thanks so much for this. What a lovely description, you put it perfectly.
oh so many wonderful books! I loved Little Tim & the Brave Sea Captain, and we had all the Lucy and Tom books. I am now having the ultimate pleasure of tracking down second hand copies of all my favourites for my own children: recently I got my hands on the Lion in the Meadow with the original psychedelic pictures – fabulous 🙂
Hello Fiona, thanks so much for calling by. I’m glad you share some of the same favourites too.
And WOW to track down second hand copies of old treasures is a really fantastic project! I don’t know Lion in the Meadow and am looking it up right now…