About Me! Today's Question: What was my favorite Childhood book?

​© T.B. Cooper

​It may come as a shock to some people, but certainly not to those who know me-- BUT...

I still own pretty much every book I've EVER OWNED, including those from my childhood.

It may also surprise some of you to know that I began reading at an extremely young age. I was not even quite three yet. The first word I remember reading was “freckles.” Reading and Education were important values to my family, and especially to my overly strict father.

**A little background here**

Lollipop Poem

​Both of my parents were born during the middle of WWII in different locations, in China. My father came from money and his family was able to escape a majority of the horrors of war. My mother however, was one of six children, of a young widowed mother. They lived in a tiny house, in a rural village, and that village was later ravaged by bombing and invading Japanese troops, while they lived there. Her mother(who I'm sure must've come from an extraordinarily long line of innovative, strong women) never let them suffer. Instead she taught her children the value of wits and resourcefulness, and how to waste little. And in war, many things besides life, are lost and non-replaceable.

It's the combination of these ideals that I come from; hard work, humility, humbleness, appreciation, and gratitude.

Tweet: It's the combination of these ideals that I come from; hard work, humility, humbleness, appreciation, and gratitude.

​Whew!! I got a little side-tracked there...

What was I saying?

Oh yeah, my strict dad.

So he was notorious for literally throwing away the toys/games us children had, when we were bad. We loved our toys, so therefore they were the perfect symbol of our 'goodness' that we were throwing away with our choosing to misbehave. I found out years later that he had actually donated the toys over the years to children at shelters, because he felt that the poor kids would value them more than us, since to him, us being bad equaled not appreciating our toys.

Luckily he never knew just how much I loved my books. Or if he did, he thankfully never got rid of them. He did however, throw away my journals, stories, and songs from my teen years when I left home, but that's a different story for some other time...

Maybe because he lived during an era when so many falsely led, blind followers of one of History's monsters were burning books, he didn't want to throw them away? Or maybe he just honored the knowledge the books represented? Maybe it was a combination of all that and more... 

​I of course will never know, I lost him to cancer in 2010.

Alright!! Enough Reflecting!!
What is your favorite childhood book, already?!!

????????

​
“Aw, but that's not fair,” you say.

Well by now you should've guessed!


​They were ALL MY FAVORITES!!!

​
Yes, I suppose not.

Well, I'd be lying if I said there was just one. But there is one that I've always kept dear to my heart. It was a book of pure nonsense stories, jokes and poems, designed to make the reader laugh, aptly called, “The Laugh Book”​ by Ruth Belov Gross, and illustrated by Leslie Jacobs.

​My copy (as you can see) has been through years of Hellish children, a thousand moves, and what looks like dogs or mice? Maybe? But for more than ten years it has had a place of honor, high up on a bookshelf, out of Harm's way.

THE LAUGH BOOK by Ruth Belov Gross (Cover)

THE LAUGH BOOK by Ruth Belov Gross (Copyright 1971) Before I was born...

THE LAUGH BOOK by Ruth Belov Gross (Back Page)

It's been a couple of years since I've read through it, but thumbing through its contents today, I am warmed with happy nostalgia.

Let me just tell you, I LOVE Nonsense. I think nonsense is important in a child's life, and I also kinda think kids understand nonsense. To them, nonsense makes sense. If you hide a message in a nonsense story, the children will get it, the first time. That's why shows like Spongebob are still so damn popular, when other cartoons that try to shove the message directly down the kids' throats without so much as a warm cup of milk, have come and gone in droves, year after year.

But I digress...

My favorites within the book, were definitely the 'Dopey' stories which are basically about this little guy that interprets homonyms incorrectly, and accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Then there's 'A Dumb Story That Rhymes,' which involves a cat and a rat and a 'splat.' Now who wouldn't love that?

Yes, like Dr. Seuss, this book is rhyming nonsense mastery...
​
I loved all of it then, and I still do now.
And funnily enough, as I relived a wondrous time in my past, I also noticed where my love of not just nonsense stories originated from, but where my first taste of nonsense formatting came from.

Huh?

Dopey jokes from THE LAUGH BOOK by Ruth Belov Gross

A Dumb Story That Rhymes THE LAUGH BOOK by Ruth Belov Gross

​Well, the 'Picture Poems' are written in a non-standard left to right format. Meaning they are written into a 'shape' like an umbrella, a roller coaster, and a lollipop. This same format was in one of my other favorites, although NOT from my childhood (more like discovered it in 10th grade), “The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales” by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith (also by them, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, told by A. Wolf-- another brilliant dose of silly nonsense) This use of words in an image shape or just inconsistent with 'the norms' version, is EXACTLY what I (I mean, “my friend” Dirty Foot Butterscotch) wanted to accomplish with my very first book (A Most Wonderful Remarkable “Something” Starring Spotted Bag). But the option to do so in the self-publishing world with standard computer software and no extra income to spare, back in 2005, was just not available to a single mother of three, who quit her job to start a housecleaning business and write books...

The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith

The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith (Back Page)

The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith Table of Contents

It is crazy to see when you revisit something, or someone, just what parts of you & your life it/they influenced,
​without you even knowing.

Tweet: It is crazy to see when you revisit something, or someone, just what parts of you & your life it/they influenced, without you even knowing.

I never met my mother's mom. But from hearing stories from my mom and my aunt (they're twins, btw) about who their mother was, and how she tackled adversity with her shoulders back and her chin up (traits she split evenly between her daughters), and I then combine that background with my father's thirst for knowledge and hunger for success... well... 

All of that, from giving a child a book and the gift of knowing how to read it.

The possibilities available in this universe, of what one could hope to accomplish,
​are as endless as are the stories yet to be told.

I hope you enjoyed reading this! I'll be back in the morning with my

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*And if you want the affiliate links for the books I spoke on, here they are below. Yes, I will get paid for your purchase if you use them, or you can click on the pictures/links above and not worry about who referred whom. :)