Old Bones the Wonder Horse by Mildred Mastin Pace was my favorite book during my childhood. I read it several times. I connected with its theme: what we might perceive as weak can surprise us with its strength. Another theme it stresses is the importance of remaining loyal to those who truly care about you. I’ve blogged about the difficult time that I had learning to read, because I was placed in a first-grade class where the students were older and more advanced. But once I learned, there was no stopping me. I read book after book after book. I especially remember Charlotte’s Web, the Little House on the Prairie series, and the “Eddie” books by Carolyn Haywood.

Recently I read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, for the first time, but didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have if I’d read it as a child. I sometimes think about the books I didn’t read in childhood (never once touched a Nancy Drew title) and wonder if I missed out on anything. By the time I was ten or eleven, I was so eager to read the books my older sister was reading that I did just that. There were no more children’s books for me. Years later, I worked for a while as a children’s librarian and discovered a trove of reading material to enjoy. In a way, I recaptured some of my childhood by enjoying new-to-me characters and titles, including picture books. It was a bright period for me.

I imagine that if I’d had the good fortune to have children of my own, I would have enjoyed introducing them to books, and reading to and with them. But I don’t think we can ever truly enjoy a book on our own the way we did when we read it as children. We adults are perhaps jaded and lack the same enthusiasm. I think sometimes about reading Old Bones again. But maybe I won’t. The experience won’t be the same as when I was a child, and I don’t want to replace those wonderful memories of a book that little me loved so much.