Books, Beautiful Books...

You may have tangible wealth untold; 

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. 

Richer than I you can never be --

I had a Mother who read to me.

(Strickland Gillilan)

     I had a Grandmother who read to me. I hadn't thought about Grandma Edna for some time, nor of the beautiful books I have inherited from her. It wasn't seeing those books on my bookshelves that reminded me of her just now. Strangely enough, it was the aroma of macaroni-and-cheese that transported me across time and space to my childhood and her company.

     When my parents would go out for the evening, my sister and I would be left in Grandma's care, and since Grandma didn't really cook, that meant a dinner of macaroni-and-cheese and Lawrence Welk or Lassie on the TV. Sometimes Grandma lived with us, in a tiny set of rooms that used to be the "maid's quarters" when the rambling old house was new decades in the past. But much of the time when I was small, she lived in equally tiny rooms on the second floor of the Porter Hotel in downtown San Fernando.
     The aroma of macaroni-and-cheese bubbling in the oven always starts me down a wispy "stream of consciousness" trail in my mind. From mac-n-cheese nights, I'm drawn to the memory of another scent, that of Grandma's sweet talcum powder. In my mind's eye I see the two of us sitting on her bed in that small apartment on the Porter Hotel's second floor. I was little, a preschooler perhaps. We'd push the bolster and pillows up against the wall and sit on the woolen blue-and-white bedcover, whose rough and bumpy texture I can still feel. Leaning back against the pillows and snuggled up together over a book, we were warm and cozy. I loved listening to her read aloud to me, while I looked at the pictures. A gifted storyteller, she magically pulled me into the tales, her voice rising and falling with the rhythm of the plot, bringing the characters alive by giving each of them a unique speaking voice.
     Grandma would read modern stories like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham to me, occasionally, if I asked, but both of us really preferred it when she read from an old book filled with fairy tales. Book House For Children volumes, edited by Olive Beaupre Miller and printed in 1925, were filled with stories handed down for generations and from cultures around the world. The tales were accompanied by beautiful multi-colored illustrations in bold hues, their borders and scrolling reminiscent of ancient illuminated manuscripts. Between the covers were familiar fairy tales like "Sleeping Beauty" and "Little Red Riding Hood," but there were also many lesser known stories as well. My favorites, the ones we read over and over and over, were "Snow White and Rose Red" and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."
     These same books sit, today, on my own bookshelves, along with others of that same vintage, My Book of History and Tales from... . Originally purchased for my mother, back in the days before the Great Depression reduced my grandmother from prosperity to poverty, they are still in beautiful condition.  The covers are embossed fabric, each printed with a brilliantly colored illustration; the pages are made of thick paper rarely seen in modern books.
    
     When I was about nine or ten, Grandma Edna came to live with us. Her eyesight, as a result of glaucoma, was nearly gone, so she could no longer read. I would sit in the living room with her and read to her from my favorite Nancy Drew books, beginning with The Mystery of the Old Clock. I'm not sure, in hindsight, how interesting she found those children's mysteries to be, but she sat with me and at least feigned great interest as I read aloud with emphasis, giving each character a different speaking voice, just like she had taught me how to do. Those old Nancy Drew books, the old, dark blue ones with the cloth covers, not the newer yellow and blue ones, sit in the bookcase adjacent to the Book House tomes, each representing a different phase in my young life.

     Decades later, when my son, Dean, was little, I read aloud to him every day. We read newer children's books like Jamberry and Heckety Peg, but it was from the pages of the Book House volumes that we discovered the fairy tales and legends that captivated us both. Dean's favorites were different than mine; he favored hero's adventures rather than princess stories. We'd cuddle up all warm and cozy to pour over a story and its pictures. Like Grandma, I'd read in voices and with great enthusiasm. Dean grew up to be as voracious a reader as I was, and still am.
     When he was about seven, in an effort to make room in his bookcases for newer acquisitions, I began packing up some of the preschool level books, with the intention of donating them to the local library. Dean interrupted my project and asked what I was going to do with the big box of his "baby books." When I explained my plan, tears began to well up in his eyes, and he said with heartfelt passion, "You can't give away my books! My books are my life!"
     Needless to say, I returned the books to their honored places on the shelves and never again even considered giving them away. As a result, both he and I could be considered prime examples of "bookaholics," having homes filled with overflowing bookshelves, towering piles of books, read and unread, on nearly every flat surface, beside the bed, on the coffee table, next to the comfy reading chair.

Bookaholic:

1. someone who loves books and reading, 
2. someone with a vast collection of books,
3. someone who keeps buying books to add to a stack of unread books

     If I'm going to have a vice, I'm just as glad that this is it. Though expensive and time-consuming, it's rather harmless and a great source of pleasure.