No, still not reading, the one must-do habit I practice with passion in normal times. I have been unable to read during the pandemic. Weirdest thing ever.
I’ve shared on here before that when I was still in elementary school and we’d moved to South Carolina, the minister at our church began Becky’s Official (post-Little Golden Books and the book of poetry my mother had given me) Library. My books had been either hand-me-downs from or still belonged to my older siblings. Or they were library books that had to be returned.
To begin my own library was an amazing thing, and the books he bought me were from the Whitman Classics Library series, among them this one.
I loved Heidi. I re-read it often, each time with as much pleasure as the first. This is actually a rather lovely book.
Endpapers: Grandfather carrying Heidi in the snow.
Some illustrations are enhanced by a single color ink (GOATS!):
But others are in full color.
Heidi reunites with Grandmother:
Heidi watches Grandfather with Clara:
I took this book off the shelf today to show Tom, and though it’s been decades since I read it, I could remember everyone’s names as I flipped through it to look at the illustrations. That’s how much I must have loved and internalized this book.
The reason I pulled it down is because today, Tom discovered the secret to getting me up, showered, dressed, and out the door in record time. “There’s an estate sale at the two-story white house around the corner and they have BARBIES.”
I honestly thought a six-feet-plus-tall guy and I might come to blows over a few of those dolls (and OH THERE WERE DOZENS). I couldn’t possibly have bought all the ones I wanted because I’m not rich. But among the ones I got–an absolutely sentimental buy–is this one.
I was unfamiliar with Mattel’s “When I Read, I Dream” series from 2001. But now I have Heidi, and there are MORE GOATS to look at.
Nice find. Tall Guy and I even managed to make a few trades peacefully.
I’ve found certain stressors to have surprising impacts.
After a major earthquake, font, front and fault, regardless of context, always became font. I had to stop, breathe, calm, think, focus on my mouth movment, and maybe, just maybe its not font.
Reading music, a more traumatic experience, permanently ended. Oh, I can still read sheet music, but the desire to play it totally evaporated when I realized that dreadful day, I was just blankly looking at lines and dots. I have no desire to do so, and it’s been years.
I see you’re reading. Gotcha. Tea?