The first magic any of us really experience is in a book. There is nothing more magical than joining Jack and Annie when the tree house spins faster and faster until everything is still, absolutely still. They transport us to Neverland and Wonderland. They teach us things. That loving something can make it real because we’ve all had our Velveteen Rabbits. To sit and smell the flowers like Ferdinand. Or all you need is a purple crayon to make a whole new world. Sometimes the magic was in understanding a character so completely, because we’ve all had terrible, horrible, no good very bad days. Sometimes the magic was in the simple joy Amelia Bedelia’s blunders brought us or Dr. Seuss’s nonsensical rhymes. And sometimes the magic was simply just in saying goodnight to the moon.
For me, my favorite books growing up are filled with memories. Not so much my mom tucking me in at night, though it is that too. The memories and magic for me are a connection. In each of my grandmother’s Lucy Maud Montgomery books, my grandmother wrote her name. For me to pick up that book that she loved so much, means the world. It is a type of magic that words fail to describe. To hold the books she held, to read the words she read, it is like her being there and reading them with me. My all time favorite children’s book, though, would be My Mama Had A Dancing Heart. I cannot write a blog about children’s books without mentioning that one book in particular. The mention of it alone makes me smile, because it is something my mom and I share to this day.
John Green called reading a collaboration between the reader and the author. I would go a step further and say it is also a collaboration between reader and reader. There is something special, something exciting when someone reads or has read the same book. There is a personal and intimate connection, whether it’s between family, friends, classmates, or that random customer who walks into your booth.
John Green called reading a collaboration between the reader and the author. I would go a step further and say it is also a collaboration between reader and reader. There is something special, something exciting when someone reads or has read the same book. There is a personal and intimate connection, whether it’s between family, friends, classmates, or that random customer who walks into your booth.
Constantly, I return to this first magic. A lot of times for me, personally, it’s like visiting old friends. Once more, I explore The Hundred Acre Woods. Once again, Max and I start a wild rumpus. Years later, since my library has grown, so has that magic and my inspiration. Now I find it in J.R.R. Tolkien’s poetry: “Not all who wander are lost.” Or in some contemporary young adult literature.
Through fairy doors and fairy houses and ornaments, I’m able to take this magic and continue that connection and collaboration. It has always been the first real magic, and now, for me, it is where I turn to first for inspiration.
Through fairy doors and fairy houses and ornaments, I’m able to take this magic and continue that connection and collaboration. It has always been the first real magic, and now, for me, it is where I turn to first for inspiration.
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