Treasure Maps and Tiaras is a blog I've dedicated to my favorite children's books. Children's books are special. Don't get me wrong, give me a copy of Madame Bovary any day and you'll find me sitting on my couch for hours with mug after mug of Earl Grey, lapping up the progression of events in sheer bliss. But the fact of the matter is, Madame Bovary doesn't mean as much to me as Matilda, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Barbar or any other childhood favorites. That's because I strongly believe that a true love of reading starts when you are young. It's where the magic all begins. These stories (among many others) are ones that completely bewitched me and made me develop a compulsive urge to discover more magic in other stories. They are fun, clever, and utterly unique. I mean, when you're little and believe in magic and happily ever afters, what could honestly be better than a healthy dose of Peter Pan?
Which brings me to my overall point. I am a twenty-something who recently graduated from college. While attending this fine institution, I was an English major and let me tell you, there was no Dr. Seuss happening in my classes. Instead, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Chaucer were my go-tos. At one point, when I was well into my 200 pages of reading slotted for the day, a worrisome thought crossed my mind. Am I cut out for this? I instantly felt ashamed that I wasn't acting like a true English major. How embarrassing. But then I realized that all I needed was a bit of balance. I had been overloading on all the harder stuff; what I truly craved was something light and fun. That's when I picked up The Wolves of Willoughby Chase for probably the tenth time and dove right in.
It was the best, most restorative feeling. I felt like I was young Rachel again who loved dressing up her Barbies, twirling about in her tutu, and reading to her little sister under a homemade tent. I was transported back into my childhood, back into someone who wanted to eat ice cream at least twice a day and thought lipstick was really, really cool. As an adult (well, sort of...), I found that reading children's books returned me to a kind of Neverland - a place where I never had to grow up and had the most innovative ideas on how I would spend my time. Living only in the present, never fretting about the future.
I think whenever we turn back to our favorite children's books, there's a part of us that gets rediscovered again. We become more hopeful, inspired, and confident. We refuse to settle for the mundane and dare to dream big. In that experience, the true power of the children's book is revealed. It is the power to touch someone at any age. I'm sorry, Flaubert, but Madame Bovary just doesn't do it like a simple, imaginative children's book.
"...whenever we turn back to our favorite children's books, there's a part of us that gets rediscovered again. We become more hopeful, inspired, and confident. We refuse to settle for the mundane and dare to dream big. In that experience, the true power of the children's book is revealed."
ReplyDeleteI think you just wrote the mission statement for your blog! keep the great prose coming