My 1st Children's Books

There are two books that I can recall perfectly from my childhood that really opened me up to enjoying stories. The first book is Dorothea Warren Fox, Miss Twiggley’s Tree. This is such a wonderful book from the 60’s; I believe it was republished in 2002. It is about a women and her dog, puss, who live up in a weeping willow tree. She sends the dog out to do all the shopping because all the people in the neighborhood believe she is odd. When people would come to visit puss, the dog, would entertain them while Miss Twiggley hid. One day a hurricane came and the entire town was under water, all except Miss Twiggley’s house in the tree. Puss invited all of them up to the house, and in summary everyone realized what a great person Miss Twiggley was and just because she chose to live in a tree she was a normal as you or me, and maybe even a bit smarter.

The second book that moved me into enjoying reading when I was young is Arlene Mosel, Tikki Tikki Tembo. This is a fantasy book for me when I was young it was the book I remember that opened me up to other cultures besides ours, and the feeling that the world was larger than just where I lived. In this book the first and grandest son had an extremely long name that you just had to sing every time they came to it in the story, “Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.” Catchy little name isn’t it!

Can you remember some of your first children’s stories that you fell in love with?