Memory Lane Fridays - A Favourite Book

Memory Lane Friday is a time each week to write about your childhood, preserving those memories for your family. Each week is a different theme (but of course you can always write about whatever you'd like). This week's theme is a favorite book.

Geez, you mean I only get to choose ONE book?  I mean, ONE?  I should go take some pictures of my book stash, err "collection".  I mean, my obsession with books began when I was just barely old enough to turn the pages.    I used to read (and by read, I mean look at the pictures) the same National Geographic book about Cats every single night while we listened to the radio and everyone in the family read when I was barely over a year old.  I remember being obsessed with Ralph S Mouse (Beverly Cleary).  And I remember reading Roald Dahl like it was going out of style.   And Nancy Drew, I probably owned every book.  And Babysitters Club, back when it was new and cool.  The Little House on the Praire series I must have read a hundred times. And Emily of New Moon, I loved those so much.  And and and, the list is too long.  And that little bit of musing only covers the first decade or so of reading.

But the books that I read over and over and over?  Anne of Green Gables.  The whole series.  I think this is the first series of books that I actually read so much that I wore the darn things right out.  I read them again and again from the time I was maybe 10 or 11, until I was 25 or 26 years old.  I loved the feeling of losing myself in the world of the not-so-distant past.  Long enough ago that it was foreign, but not so far that it wasn't imaginable.  The world was so real to me (heck, it still is!) that I could practically smell the lilacs, and see the sun reflecting off the water. 

And if you'll excuse me, I need to go dig through my book pile now.