Are you a collector? Are your bookshelves loaded with Hummels, tiny spoons, Franklin Mint commemorative plates? No? Me neither. Nothing makes me shudder more than a marathon episode of Hoarders. Not even books clutter my shelves.
The reason? Every book I’ve ever bought has sprung a pair of legs and walked off to my girlfriends’ houses. The only books that stick around are the ones I didn’t like. And they only leave by force, like reluctant children off to camp.
But there’s an exception to every rule.
There is one book that I’ve loved for thirty-five years and is never allowed to leave. Its binding is loose. Its pages, soft and limp. There is a purple crayon scribble on page seven. I can recite every line by heart, and I weep as I turn the last page.
My grandfather gave me MISS TWIGGLEY’S TREE in 1974 when I was a little girl. It wasn’t my birthday. It wasn’t Christmas. He gave it to me on a Tuesday in June after Grandma finished washing my hands with Ivory soap. He said it was just because he loved me.
It is all I have left of him now. I read it to my own children. It does more to tell them about their great-grandfather than any worn photograph ever could, and it’s that lesson that I remember:
Before giving a child a figurine, or a stuffed animal that will only litter a book shelf, I try to find that one special book that will speak to that child.
And when in doubt, I look for that funny Miss Twiggley who lived in a tree “with a dog named Puss and a color t.v.”
I must read this book ASAP – out loud to my five-year-old and ten-year-old. I agree books are such special gifts. It’s hard for me to give children’s books away, especially. I think – I could read that to my grandchild someday.
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I remember my grandfather purchasing me a clearance book from Waldenbooks on one of his regular walking trips at the mall. I was about about 12, I think. The book was a hardback anthology of Charlie Chan mysteries. I wasn’t a huge fan and I lost the book in a fire, but the memories of the purchase and others from the Waldenbooks clearance bin are fond ones.