For years parents, grandparents, teachers and day care providers, have been encouraged to read books, stories and poems to children. My mother often read to me and sometimes when my father had time, he too would do so. I loved hearing all those stories but mostly for some reason I was drawn to the nursery rhymes. I don’t even know if those nursery rhymes are read today to children as I suppose some of them and their wordings are considered unacceptable for children’s ears, but for me and those children growing up a few years back, they hold such memories.

Most of the nursery rhymes were written back in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Some were made into songs and games such as London Bridge is Falling Down, Pat a Cake Baker’s Man, Ring O’Round The Roses, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Wincy Spider. More of the nursery rhymes remembered were Little Miss Muffet, though I never was sure of what a muffet or tuffet was; Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens, that made me think twice about losing my mittens or gloves; There Was An Old Women Who Lived in a Shoe, and I always wondered how a women with a lot of kids ever could live in a shoe; Jack and Jill, who fell down a hill; Hickory Dickory Dock, that always made me look in clocks to see if mice somehow got into the clocks. Another was Humpty Dumpty. I wondered how a giant egg was doing sitting up on top of a wall. Years later I learned that Humpty Dumpty was really a cannon that feel off a wall. They say that many of these rhymes had hidden meanings. I guess I never cared about those hidden meanings. I loved those nursery rhymes and they must have stuck with me all these years, as I memorized them all.

Golden Books were also good children reads. They were often read to me and I too continued to purchase those Golden Books and read them to my sons and later to my grand daughters. Some of my favorites were Baby Dear, Roy Rogers, and Cinderella. Some of Golden Books also had paper dolls in them that could be cut out and used.

Books read to my sons, and grand daughters that were also some of my favorite reads were The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, and of course Dr. Suess books such as Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who, How The Grinch Stole Christmas. My youngest son’s favorite childhood book was The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder, about a yearly day farm boy. I enjoyed reading Shel Silverstein’s books to my grand daughters, such as The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends. There were the beloved books by A.A. Milne that told tales of the dear bear Winnie The Pooh and his friends, and those were a favorite of my oldest son. Another liked by my sons and grand daughters was the Sesame Street book titled, The Monster at the end of the Book and they couldn’t wait until the end of the book was reached to find the monster. The granddaughters enjoyed the books and later watched the DVDs of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and of the Anne Of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Hopefully others have memories of their childhood favorite readings.