Showing posts with label Junie B Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Junie B Jones. Show all posts

Monday, September 27, 2010

Nice Knowing You, Junie




Book Sales! It doesn’t seem to matter the amount of books falling out of shelves, cabinets, closets or car doors….open a box of cereal and out comes yet another unread but Meaning To Read, Book.

Books are one of THE highest loves in my life. I hate to be a fogey but I’m not sure that I’ll ever get a Nook or Kindle or anything that requires me to charge up my application to simply read.

My beloved is not so much the collector type….he likes to, but instead of reading his books, Means To and instead buys another daily NY Times. That’s all kinds of dandy and informed of him….I enjoy his papers too. I usually see the headlines as I line the guinea pigs cages with them. Sometimes I will even put a few aside during cleaning.

Humanling and I love a great library book sale. Translation: You Can Afford Sixteen books for the cost of One Hardcover – Possibly More! She doesn’t have quite the patience that I do unless it has something to do with a video game device but she will usually find some way to occupy her time.

We brought home many interesting titles and I wonder about the history of the giver, the owner, the buyer, the occasion of receipt if given. At the sale, my hands lightly ran over the covers of books older than my deceased grandmother. I opened one….it had writing in it and the date was 1906. I can’t capitalize 1906 but I would if exclamatory numbers were on this keyboard.

When we got home, Humanling decided that it was time to pack up many of her older books, knowing that when you bring some home, some should probably go. She started pulling out things that I could see she never was that interested in and then the shocker. For about 5 years, she has been reading this particular series, Junie B Jones. She gathered all of her dog eared Junie’s and placed them in the box. No matter how many book guttings we’ve done, the Junie’s were sacred. She hadn't yet been done with them and I hadn't pushed her. Now they were leaving her hands and being laid down with the other books that never did mean anything for her.

I felt that weird Mother’s Resistance to Moving On and Growing Up.

“Junie B’s?” I said to her. “Are you sure?”

She looked at me solemnly but with confident seriousness.

“I’m almost twelve now. Twelve year olds don’t read Junie B. Jones.”

I looked at her and all I could muster was resignedly, “You’re right. You are right.”

And watched her grow up just a tiny bit more.