My three year old son has recently become very interested in books – not the super short board books or picture books, but real storybooks. I love that I can sit and read to him, and he’ll actually sit still and listen, fully engrossed, until the story is over. And then, he will ask me to read it again, or to read another one. His new found love for stories made me nostalgic about my favorite books growing up. On a recent visit to my parents’ house, I rummaged around in the closets and dug out some treasures from my childhood. Since I couldn’t take them with me on the move to California (the suitcases were already going to be packed full), I took pictures of them instead. Here are a few of my favorite books, plus a few other things, from my early years:
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- “Sunny and Gay” was an old school storybook full of fun pictures, stories, and rhymes. I vividly remember certain pages of this book!
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- One of my favorite selections from “Sunny and Gay,” both for the rhymes and pictures
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- Some fun nursery rhymes from “Sunny and Gay”
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- This Disney World pop-up book amazed me as a child!
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- The pop-up book’s imaginative depiction of the Jungle Cruise
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- Pop-up book pages devoted to the Swiss Family Treehouse and Haunted Mansion
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- An impressive rendering of Cinderella’s Castle, complete with fireworks!
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- Do they still make these books? What fun these were – the idea that you could control each twist and turn of the story!
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- I don’t remember exactly what this story was about, but as a child I had a fascination with miniature creatures (the Littles, the Borrowers, the Rescuers…), so this was right up my alley. Miss Suzy was a squirrel who moved into a dollhouse, or something like that.
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- This may have been my favorite book from early childhood – “hand, hand, fingers, thumb, dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum” – it had great rhyming and rhythm.
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- An example of the colorful pictures and language of “Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb”
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- This word book made my imagination run wild, and definitely helped me learn to read and build my vocabulary! I loved to study all the details of each picture – there was something new to discover every time.
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- This book half intrigued, half disturbed me when I was young. The illustrations and story were bizarre (a boy with a tummy ache is rushed to the doctor, who proceeds to pull various objects from his abdomen).
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- On this page of the book, the doctor pulls out shoes, galoshes, and a plant!
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- “The Haunted House” was my favorite Disney character book. Mickey, Donald, and Pluto encounter three “ghosts” in an old house, but it turns out that the ghosts are actually thieves hiding out from the police after they robbed a bank. The story was just the right mix of spooky and exciting.
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- On this page (one of my favorites), Mickey starts to figure out that the ghosts aren’t real.
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- This was definitely my favorite book for a long time! What a fun adventure story about all the things these little bears discovered inside a spooky old tree.
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- This page was my favorite – it showed the path the bears took through the tree, and all the things they encountered. I wanted to explore a tree like that, too!
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- This auto bingo board may be the only travel game that has survived the years. My family enjoyed spotting silos, tractors, etc. – especially on our drives through the country to DeRidder, LA, where my grandparents lived.
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- This Little People house is an example of “they don’t make them like they used to.” The miniature furniture, the detailed interior, the garage door that opens and closes, and a front door that rings… It’s all so much better than the newer, bulkier version.
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- The house in its closed up and ready to travel mode
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- I loved to carry around this lunch box – it came with a matching thermos, too!
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- Another super fun Disney lunch box – this one featured tons of different characters riding in a school bus. It’s amazing that these lunch boxes have survived over 30 years! Today’s Diego and Toy Story lunch contraptions only seem to last a few months.
Do you remember loving any of these books and toys? What were some of your favorites?
